A traveler by the name of Markham, (_Jour. of English Geog. Soc. Vol. xli., 1871, pp. 285, 286_.) in speaking of the country between the northern line of Chili and the southern line of Ecuador--the country which we think was called the land of Nephi, and in some portion of which Nephi settled with his people when he fled from his brethren--says: "This vast tract comprises every variety of climate, and contains within its limits most prolific tropical forests, valleys with the climate of Italy, a coast region resembling Sinde or Egypt, temperate hillsides or plateaux, bleak and chilling pasture lands, and lofty peaks and ridges within the limits of eternal snows. On one mountain side the eye may embrace, at a single glance, sugar cane and bananas under cultivation in the lowest zone, waving fields of Indian corn a little higher up, shaded by tall trees, orchards of tropical fruits, stretches of wheat and barley, steep slopes, covered with potatoes and quinoa, bleak pastures where llamas and alpacas are browsing, and rocky pinnacles streaked with snow." Such a country, with such a variety of climates and products, was well adapted for the cradle of an imperial race as the Nephites proved to be. The mighty obstacles of nature, which some portions of that country presented, were such as to tax their ingenuity to the utmost. But Humboldt has well observed that, "When enterprising races inhabit a land where the form of the ground presents to them difficulties on a grand scale which they may conquer and overcome, the contest with nature becomes a means of increasing their strength and power as well as their courage." Stevenson, in his _Twenty Years in South America_, says, in speaking of one of the provinces of this region: "The various climates, assisted by the various localities of the soil, would produce all the necessaries and all the luxuries of life; for in the small compass of fifty leagues, a traveler experiences the almost unbearable heat of the torrid zone, the mild climates of the temperate, and the freezing cold of the polar regions." The cities of Lehi-Nephi and Shilom, which Zeniff calls "the land of our fathers," were, doubtless, delightfully situated and possessed every advantage of climate and soil. This appears evident from the anxiety of some of the children of those whom Mosiah, by the command of the Lord, led away from that land through the wilderness to Zarahemla, to go back there and live. Modern travelers speak in language of the highest praise of the region in some part of which we suppose those cities stood. Spruce, an English traveler, (_Jour. of English Geog. Soc., Vol. xxxi., 1861, p. 175_) says, in speaking of the plains in Ecuador: