forces which either the Spanish or Portuguese could introduce into the
Continent. As it was, the era was one of moulding and experiments. Even
at the present day it would seem difficult to decide whether many of
these latter have proved themselves definite successes or undoubted
failures. The general conditions of the New World at this period are
well worthy of note.

No doubt South America has been more widely experimented upon in the
colonizing sense than any other Continent. The methods of the Spaniards
and Portuguese were by no means similar throughout. Indeed, the
principles adopted by the four greatest colonizing nations of the
age--the Spanish, the Portuguese, the English, and the Dutch--were all
distinguished from each other by various important features.

The British, where they came into contact with dark-skinned races of
inferior vigour and individual power, made a point of holding aloof, so
far as the more important social points were concerned. Thus in India
and in Africa the gulf between the white and the black has continued
unbridged. The representatives of the British have remained as a
governing race, relying upon the strict justice of their rule for its
preservation. They have refrained from interference in the thousand
jealousies and caste regulations with which the East Indies were, and
are, honeycombed, becoming active only when oppression became barefaced.
These officials, that is to say, have made a point of respecting the
religions of the various tribes, and have even encouraged them to
continue unmolested.

As a result, the Governors, as a body, won the respect, and even the
reverence, of a great mass of the populace, but gained comparatively
little actual and personal affection. They were subjected to the