likely to develop. If he betook himself to the town his possible
usefulness lessened in proportion as he fell into drunken or
dissolute habits, or lapsed into a state of lazy and vacuous
dreaminess, enlivened only by chatter or the rolling of a
cigarette. On the other hand, when employed in a capacity where
native talent might be tested, he often revealed a power of
action which, if properly guided, could be turned to excellent
account. As a cowboy, for example, he became a capital horseman,
brave, alert, skillful, and daring.

Commerce with Portugal and Spain was long confined to yearly
fairs and occasional trading fleets that plied between fixed
points. But when liberal decrees threw open numerous ports in the
mother countries to traffic and the several colonies were given
also the privilege of exchanging their products among themselves,
the volume of exports and imports increased and gave an impetus
to activity which brought a notable release from the torpor and
vegetation characterizing earlier days. Yet, even so,
communication was difficult and irregular. By sea the distances
were great and the vessels slow. Overland the natural obstacles
to transportation were so numerous and the methods of conveyance
so cumbersome and expensive that the people of one province were
practically strangers to their neighbors.

Matters of the mind and of the soul were under the guardianship
of the Church. More than merely a spiritual mentor, it controlled
education and determined in large measure the course of
intellectual life. Possessed of vast wealth in lands and
revenues, its monasteries and priories, its hospitals and
asylums, its residences of ecclesiastics, were the finest