What a strange sight are these wildernesses to a European accustomed to live in one of these crowded countries of the Old World where men have built their houses everywhere, from the shores of the sea up to the highest habitable slopes of the mountains! It is a great city half a million, a million, two million men are crowded together there in the shadow of a thousand chimneys, surrounded on every side by an almost deserted country. Automobiles and trolley cars move through the streets. Huge edifices rise from the midst of the little dwellings like giants in a crowd of dwarfs. Then all at once the train begins to rush through the midst of houses. Then the traveler slips on into the deserted country. From time to time a village appears, bristling with chimneys. In North America, or at least in its Eastern States, there are vast and desolate tracts. One must travel long hours by railroad before catching sight of a village.
The shadowy hills are still covered by the primeval forest the others, those where the timber been burned off and replaced by coffee plantations but even here there is no trace of human life. In Brazil, so far as the eye can see, there are ranges of mountains, shadowy even in bright daylight, in the midst of which one notices, from time to time, a mountain standing out more distinctly than its mates. In Argentina there are vast and luxuriant valleys, over which the train seems to creep toward the very edge of a horizon which ever recedes as the traveler advances: from time to time, four or five red one-storied houses, clustered behind a station, recall to his mind the fact that this wilderness is actually inhabited. I say "wilderness," for to the eyes of the European who travels its immensities by rail, America gives the impression of a far-reaching solitude. Thus it came that the historian of antiquity had an opportunity to visit the wilderness of America. This first invitation was followed by two others: one, from the Brazilian Academy, and one from Mr. Emilio Mitre, to invite me to Buenos Ayres. The sympathy which my audience was kind enough to accord to my former studies encouraged a distinguished citizen of Argentina, M. How has it come about that after seven years the historian of Rome should write an essay on the two worlds of the present day, and discuss America as a European sees it? For this change of subject the Parisian public is in a measure responsible.
HORIZON DEFINITION RIDDLE SERIES
Seven years ago I had the honor of giving in Paris a series of lectures on the Emperor Augustus.
I take the liberty of beginning this paper with a preface of a personal character.
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