The moment the first vessel floats through from the Caribbean to the Pacific the course of commerce will reverse its direction. Buenaventura, Esmeraldas, Guayaquil, Callao, Mollendo, Iquique, and even Valparaiso and Talcahuano will send their ships by the short route of Panama instead of around the continent and through the Straits of Magellan. Western Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile herself will be tied by rapidly strengthening bonds of mutual interest and intercourse to each other and to the great commercial nations; and a transformation will begin whose extent no man can foresee. Every patriotic American must hope that his own countrymen will devote the money, energy, and attention essential to secure that share of influence and trade justly due the United States' geographical proximity and political sympathy; that French literature, language, and ideas, British capital, and German commerce now so dominant in all South America, will be supplemented by American schools, money, and commercial enterprise; and that such influences will spread from Panama through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia down the coast to prosperous Chile and across into the fertile plains of Argentina and southern Brazil. The author wishes to acknowledge his especial indebtedness to Sir Clement Markham's scholarly _History of Peru_, one of the very few complete and intelligent histories of a South American country available in the English language. The reader who commands Spanish will be interested in Torrente's _Revolucion Sud Americana_, Mackenna's _Historiade la Independencia_, Paz Soldan's _Narracion Historica_, Mitre's _San Martin_, and Bulnes's _Expedicion Libertadora_. For Chile excellent books in both Spanish and English abound, among which are worth special mention, Barros Arana's _Historia General_, Mitre's _San Martin_, Banados's _Balmaceda_, Hancock's _History of Chile_, and Hervey's _Dark Days in Chile_. Few authorities exist for Bolivia. Valdes's _Estudio Historico_ is admirable for the period which it attempts to cover. Sanjines's _Historia_, Mitre's _San Martin_ and _Belgrano_, Torrente's _Revolucion_, and D'Ursel's _Sejours et Voyages_, as well as Fernandez's recent _Campana del Acre_ have been found valuable. Wolf's _Geografia del Ecuador_ is more than a geography, and no one interested in that country can afford not to study this work carefully. Suarez's _Historia General_, and Cevallos's _Compendio_ give a good account of military and political affairs but do not bring them down to recent years. For Venezuela Tejera's _Manual de Historia_ has been of much use, as also Scruggs's _Colombian and Venezuelan Republics_, Jenny Tallenay's _Souvenirs_, and in the war of independence Mitre's great work on the life of _San Martin_.