of civilization there was first the Mediterranean, then the Atlantic,
and then the Pacific, the last the greatest of all. What else is
possible? Where else on this planet is man to go for his ultimate
achievement?

Conviction comes slowly in such cases, and properly so. Yet in
forecasting the future from the light of the past cavilers can scarcely
go farther afield than our worshipful forbears, who less than a century
ago, on the floor of the United States congress, decried as absurd
settlement beyond the Missouri, ridiculed buying half a continent of
worthless Northwest wilderness, thanked God for the Rocky mountain
barrier to man's presumption, scouted at a possible wagon road, not to
say railway, across the continent, lamented the unprofitable theft of
California, and cursed the Alaska purchase as money worse than thrown
away. In view of what has been and is, can anyone call it a Utopian
dream to picture the Pacific bordered by an advanced civilization with
cities more brilliant than any of the ancient East, more opulent than
any of the cultured West?

Rio de Janeiro! what have the Brazilians been doing these last decades?
Decapitating politically dear Dom Pedro, true patriot, though emperor-he
came to me once in my library, pouring out his soul for his beloved
Brazil-they abolished slavery, formed a republic, and modernized the
city. They made boulevards and water drives, the finest in the world.
They cut through the heart of the old town a new Avenida Central, over a
mile in length and one hundred and ten feet wide, lining it on either
side with palatial business houses and costly residences, paving the
thoroughfare with asphalt and adorning it with artistic fixtures for
illumination, the street work being completed in eighteen months.
Strangling in their incipiency graft and greed, after kindly dismissing