Roughly, the travellers who now visit (like those who for the past century have visited) South America come in three categories—­ although, of course, these categories are not divided by hard-and-fast lines.

First, there are the travellers who skirt the continent in comfortable steamers, going from one great seaport to another, and occasionally taking a short railway journey to some big interior city not too far from the coast.  This is a trip well worth taking by all intelligent men and women who can afford it; and it is being taken by such men and women with increasing frequency.  It entails no more difficulty than a similar trip to the Mediterranean—­than such a trip which to a learned and broad-minded observer offers the same chance for acquiring knowledge and, if he is himself gifted with wisdom, the same chance of imparting his knowledge to others that is offered by a trip of similar length through the larger cities of Europe or the United States.  Probably the best instance of the excellent use to which such an observer can put his experience is afforded by the volume of Mr. Bryce.  Of course, such a trip represents travelling of essentially the same kind as travelling by railroad from Atlanta to Calgary or from Madrid to Moscow.

Next there are the travellers who visit the long-settled districts and colonial cities of the interior, travelling over land or river highways which have been traversed for centuries but which are still primitive as regards the inns and the modes of conveyance.  Such travelling is difficult in the sense that travelling in parts of Spain or southern Italy or the Balkan states is difficult.  Men and women who have a taste for travel in out-of-way places and who, therefore, do not mind slight discomforts and inconveniences have the chance themselves to enjoy, and to make others profit by, travels of this kind in South America.  In economic, social, and political matters the studies and observations of these travellers are essential in order to supplement, and sometimes to correct, those of travellers of the first category; for it is not safe to generalize overmuch about any country merely from a visit to its capital or its chief seaport.  These travellers of the second category can give us most interesting and valuable information about quaint little belated cities; about backward country folk, kindly or the reverse, who show a mixture of the ideas of savagery with the ideas of an ancient peasantry; and about rough old highways of travel which in comfort do not differ much from those of mediaeval Europe.  The travellers who go up or down the highway rivers that have been travelled for from one to four hundred years—­rivers like the Paraguay and Parana, the Amazon, the Tapajos, the Madeira, the lower Orinoco—­come in this category.  They can add little to our geographical knowledge; but if they are competent zoologists or archaeologists, especially if they live or sojourn long in a locality, their work may be invaluable