Читать книгу Children of South America онлайн

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How vast China seems; and India, too, how big! Africa we feel we know very little about as yet, in spite of Livingstone and all the books that have been written; but here is South America—so neglected, and so large, that there is more unexplored territory there than in any other part of the world.

Not only so, but the continent is teeming with treasure. Diamonds and gold are hidden away in the earth in Brazil and Peru. Bolivia is a vast storehouse of silver and tin and coal. Petroleum and fertilizing nitrates for cleansing the soil are to be found in Chili. The forests of Peru and Brazil spell rubber—“black gold” it is called by the natives. Chinchona trees flourish in abundance in Peru; also cocaine, which the Indians chew from morning till night, to deaden their sufferings, and their hunger.

Although South America is so large, there are, roughly speaking, only about fifty million people living in it, but the population increases every year through immigrants of all nations pouring into the continent.