Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/67

Rh greater part of the territory we inhabit, has been as unknown to us as are Persia and China.

Europe, mistress of the nations by which the rest of the globe is peopled, has not neglected these countries, but has sent her naturalists to examine them. The travellers, however, who perambulated the Peruvian territory with this intention, prior to the year 1770, made but small advancements in knowledge. The more ancient of them, for want of a due method in arranging their collections, were obliged to bring them within a very narrow compass, to avoid confusion. Those who succeeded them, although possessed of all the requisite notions to class and arrange a great number of specimens, did not profit adequately by their talents, either because they limited their inquiries exclusively to the coast, or if they