XIIl.
THE BEAR WITH SPECTACLES.

And now let us go down to near the
mouth of the Father of Waters, to “Barra
Tarra Land” or Barren Land, as it was
called of old by Cervantes, in the kingdom of
Sancho Panza. Strange how little the
great men of the old world knew of this
mew world! In one of his plays Shakes-
peare speaks of ships from Mexico ; in an-
other he means to mention the Bermudas.
Burns speaks of a Newfoundland dog as

“Whelped in a country far abroad
Where boatmen gang to fish for cod,”

and Byron gets in a whole lot about Daniel
Boone; but as a rule we were ignored.
Barra Tarra, so called, is the very richest
part of this globe. It must have been rich
always, rich as the delta of the Nile; but

now, with the fertility of more than a dozen
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