south, and its greatest breadth from east to west is 3,500 miles. It
is a country of plains and mountains and rivers. The Andean range of
mountains is 4,400 miles long. Twelve peaks tower three miles or more
above ocean level, and some reach into the sky for more than four
miles. Many of these are burning mountains; the volcano of Cotopaxi
is three miles higher than Vesuvius. Its rivers are among the longest
in the world. The Amazon, Orinoco and La Plata systems drain an area
of 3,686,400 square miles. Its plains are almost boundless and its
forests limitless. There are deserts where no rain ever falls, and
there are stretches of coast line where no day ever passes without
rain. It is a country where all climates can be found. As the
northern part of the continent is equatorial the greatest degree of
heat is there experienced, while the south stretches its length
toward the Pole Quito, the capital of Ecuador, is on the equator, and
Punta Arenas, in Chile, is the southernmost town in the world.

For hundreds of years Spain and Portugal exploited and ruled with an
iron hand their new and vast possessions. Their coffers were enriched
by fabulous sums of gold and treasure, for the wildest dream of
riches indulged in by its discoverers fell infinitely short of the
actual reality. Large numbers of colonists left the Iberian peninsula
for the newer and richer lands. Priests, monks and nuns went in every
vessel, and the Roman Catholicism of the Dark Ages was soon firmly
established as the only religion. The aborigines were compelled to
bow before the crucifix and worship Mary until, in a peculiar sense,
South America became the Pope's favorite parish. For the benefit of
any, native or colonist, who thought that a purer religion should be,
at any rate, permitted, the Inquisition was established at Lima, and
later on at Cartagena, where, Colombian history informs us, 400,000
were condemned to death. Free thought was soon stamped out when