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A Sociology of Shame
and Blame
Insiders Versus Outsiders

Graham Scambler
A Sociology of Shame and Blame
 Graham Scambler

A Sociology of Shame
and Blame
Insiders Versus Outsiders
Graham Scambler
Emeritus Professor of Sociology
University College London
London, UK
Visiting Professor of Sociology
Surrey University
Guildford, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-23142-2 ISBN 978-3-030-23143-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23143-9

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
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 Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Theoretical Perspectives on Shame and Blame 15

3 Asymmetric Lifeworld Encounters 29

4 The Neglected Contributions of Middle-Range

Social Theory 47

5 The Salience of Macro-Sociology 61

6 Towards a Sociology of Shaming and Blaming 87

7 Conclusion 105

References 109

Index 115

v
 List of Tables

Table 1.1 Disability in the UK: some statistics 7

Table 2.1 Lifeworld and system 25
Table 2.2 Notions of stigma and deviance 26
Table 3.1 Relations between system and lifeworld from a system
perspective 31
Table 3.2 Contexts for sanctioning people and cutting their benefits 38
Table 4.1 Archer’s reflexive modalities 49
Table 4.2 A typology of sex work careers, with examples
(Scambler, 2007) 50
Table 4.3 Attributes of the transitory autonomous reflexive 55
Table 5.1 The changing class distribution 64
Table 5.2 The capitalist executive 66
Table 5.3 Top 20 facts about refugees and asylum seekers 74
Table 5.4 The dialectic between shame and blame (Scambler, 2018b) 80
Table 5.5 Dark money, dirty politics and think tanks 80
Table 6.1 Jacquet’s criteria for effective stigmatisation (Jacquet, 2015) 94

vii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract This chapter sets out the major themes of this study of shame
and blame. The first describes the relationships between agency, cul-
ture and structure. The second emphasises the importance of covering
macro-, meso- and micro-perspectives. And the third focuses on the
need to consider how change might be accomplished. The four princi-
pal reference groups used in the study are then introduced. These are
migrants and refugees; the long-term sick and disabled; the homeless;
and sex workers. The chapter ends by anticipating the contents of the
remaining chapters in the book.

Keywords Shame · Blame · Agency · Culture · Structure · Migration ·

Sickness/disability · Homelessness · Sex work

It is not possible to identify people as normal, able-bodied, moral,

responsible, healthy, law-abiding, insiders, as belonging, and as a host
of other positives, unless it is also possible for others in the same soci-
ety, community or milieu to be seen as abnormal, disabled, immoral,
irresponsible, sick, criminal, outsiders or as strangers. Positives are
only possible if negatives are too, as Wittgenstein (1958) affirmed in
formulating his ‘polar opposites argument’. Moreover, these binary
distinctions are not without discernible social functions. It was the proto-
functionalist Durkheim, anticipating the dominant Parsonian paradigm
in America in the 1950s, who noted that recognising, highlighting and

© The Author(s) 2020 1

G. Scambler, A Sociology of Shame and Blame,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23143-9_1
2 G. SCAMBLER

sanctioning/punishing the negatives is important, or ‘functional’, for

the continuing stability of social order. Conformance or compliance with
the norms that define the social order at any given time and place—that
is, that reproduce the status quo—relies on the rooting out of misfits
in all their heterogeneity and the variety and severity of the threats they
represent.
Social control, as sociologists conventionally term it, can of course
be exerted in the absence of overt coercion or repression. For exam-
ple, in most developed societies it has long been the—unsought and
unwanted—function of state-licensed physicians to police the sick to
ensure they do not too long resist the capitalist ‘imperative to work’.
Sanctioning and punishment can take many forms, from executions and
imprisonment to barely perceptible strategies of avoidance. The former
Labour MP Jack Ashley (1973) recounted his experiences after suddenly
and unexpectedly losing his hearing. In the House of Commons dining
room soon after he noticed how quickly embarrassed colleagues, even
friends, made excuses to slip away, unable, unwilling or simply too impa-
tient to cope with improvised modes of communication. Insiders versus
outsiders is a template that allows for an extensive reach, as this volume
bears testimony.
So all societies and segments within them, from actual regions, local-
ities, communities and neighbourhoods to their less (or almost un-)
constrained virtual equivalents, have and act out these positive versus
negative tensions. Many, if not all, such tensions involve attributions of
shame and blame, and these provide the principal focus for this contri-
bution. I shall draw a clear analytic distinction between the two, not-
withstanding the tendency in everyday practice, in the ‘lifeworld’, to
use them interchangeably. I shall deploy the term stigma to signal epi-
sodes of non-conformance. The stigmatised infringe against norms of
shame. Their infringements do not imply non-compliance or culpabil-
ity. It is as if they are ‘imperfect beings’. The contrast is with deviance.
Deviance here refers to falling foul of norms of blame. Non-compliance
is accented. Infringements bring condemnation: deviants are culpa-
ble. Whereas shame imputes an ‘ontological deficit’, deviance reflects a
‘moral deficit’.
Three principal themes run through this volume. The first acknowl-
edges the ongoing interplay of agency, culture and structure in the mun-
dane enactments or performance of shame and blame. Agency, I shall
contend, is always contextualised by culture and structured (though
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

never structurally determined). Consider the case of a young girl from

Myanmar either ‘sold’ by an impoverished family or trafficked to work in
a brothel in Bangkok. The new culture into which she has been inserted
is likely suffocating and oppressive to the point of social claustropho-
bia, yet it would be quite wrong in my view, and insulting, to count her
agency as lost: agency can at most be subdued and temporarily misplaced
or displaced. Safe sex and the sharing of needles might register low on
priorities oriented to day-to-day survival, but neither her reflexivity nor
her agency is ever entirely absent. Not even concentration camp confine-
ment and brutality can cancel agency. Agency is part of being human.
Second, a credible sociology of shame and blame must range from and
do justice to macro- through meso- to micro-processes. As we shall see,
it was Goffman’s (1968) signal contribution to illuminate micro-pro-
cesses via his sensitisation of the concept of stigma (with which mine has
some resonance), but he did not extend much beyond brief flirtations
with meso-processes. No sociological explanation of the lot of the young
girl deposited in the brothel in Bangkok, of an asylum seeker trapped
outside Calais, or of an unemployed disabled adult rendered homeless by
the rolling out of Universal Credit in the UK, can be comprehensive or
complete in the absence of meso- and macro-theories of the contexts and
circumstances in which people experience shame and/or blame.
Third, I shall argue that any sociology worth its salt must address
issues of transformative policy and practice, and this is a logical and a
moral ‘must’. Appropriate disciplinary outcomes cannot be captured in
institutionalised metrics of productivity dwelling on the likes of funded
projects, media exposure and articles in high-impact journals. Rather,
sociology is necessarily allied with what Habermas (1984, 1987) calls
‘lifeworld rationalisation’, namely a responsibility to inform and galvanise
public deliberation and action. It is not enough to document, publish
and retreat or move on. I develop the notions of ‘foresight’ and ‘action
sociology’ introduced elsewhere (Scambler, 2018a). The former refers to
postulating and exploring possible ‘alternative futures’, the latter to an
evidence-based commitment to securing a rationalisation of the lifeworld
sufficient to allow for the challenging and righting of intolerable wrongs.
To lend continuity to the text, subsequent chapters will sporadically
feature discussions of four groups in particular: migrants/refugees; the
long-term sick and/or disabled; the homeless; and sex workers. For each,
the stigma/deviance dialectic has a special, personal and painful rele-
vance. It will suffice here to give brief introductions to these groups.
4 G. SCAMBLER

Migrants/Refugees
Movement around the globe is breaking historical records, both in abso-
lute numbers and in proportions of (national) populations. The ‘push
and pull’ factors at work are varied but there is no doubting the causal
role of climate change and shifting ecological systems, geopolitics, wars,
and absolute and relative poverty. Definitions of migrants are resonant of
these causal factors, but have also become increasingly ‘weaponised’ for
political purposes, as is evidenced by the election of Trump in the USA
and the narrow opting for a UKIP-promoted Brexit in the UK. This is
especially true of international migration, a term that only too often sub-
sumes, and calculatingly so, asylum seekers in pursuit of places safe from
persecution, torture and even state-sanctioned homicide.
A general typology of migration might differentiate between four
broad categories:

• economic (e.g. to find work);

• social (e.g. to be close to family or friends or to enhance the quality
of life);
• political (e.g. to flee from persecution or war);
• environmental (e.g. to escape natural disasters).

In the UK experiencing near-full employment through the 1950s and

into the 1960s, economic considerations were to the fore. Moreover,
pull factors were augmented by deliberate campaigns to attract workers
from the British Commonwealth, initially from the Caribbean and later
from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (i.e. from New Commonwealth), to
work in textile factories, transport, health or steelworks, often to under-
take so-called cellar jobs lacking appeal to native workers. Over time
social impulses were appended to the push and pull of economic factors.
Exceptionally, East African Asians who had settled in Uganda became
political migrants to the UK with the assumption of power of Idi Amin.
By the 1970s, however, a UK no longer enjoying either full employment
or the growth, let alone prosperity, familiar in the post-war years was
beginning to tighten migration controls.
Membership of the European Union (EU) facilitated further bouts
of migration. In 1973, the UK joined what was then the European
Economic Community (EEC), consisting initially of six states, its
membership subsequently being ratified by a referendum in 1975.
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 1 INTRODUCTION 5

The number of member states grew incrementally until, in 2004, Poland

and seven other countries joined, once again boosting migration to the
UK, with the UK one of three countries to immediately open its bor-
ders to workers from the new member states (Polish migrants were in
the vanguard). The EU now comprises 28 states, and migration controls
within the EU vary from one member state to another. Prior to the ‘yes/
no’ referendum on the UK’s continued EU membership in 2016, far-
right advocates of Brexit effectively fermented racism among those who
judged themselves deprived of jobs, houses and hope by presenting leav-
ing the EU as the sole means of arresting migration to the UK, a process
held accountable for the miseries people were enduring. Post-2010 polit-
ically motivated policies of ‘austerity’ barely got a mention. Brexit won
the day, with divisive and damaging consequences yet to be resolved.
Of growing pertinence in the twenty-first century in general are polit-
ical and environmental factors. These are represented in the notion of
‘forced migration or displacement’. According to the International
Organization for Migration (IOM), forced migration is ‘a migratory
movement in which an element of coercion exists, whether arising from
natural or man-made causes (e.g. movements of refugees and internally
displaced persons as well as people displaced by natural or environmen-
tal disasters, chemical or nuclear disasters, famine, or developmental pro-
jects’ (IOM, 2011)). It is estimated that a record 68.5 million people
are fleeing war or persecution worldwide, that is, one in 110 people is
‘displaced’ (Beaumont, 2018). As far as the EU is concerned, and gath-
ering momentum since 2016, an influx of desperate refugees and asylum
seekers from the Middle East in general, and Syria in particular, has been
seen as specially ‘problematic’. At the time of writing, some 34,361 ref-
ugees are thought to have died trying to reach the putative security of
Europe (McIntyre & Rice-Oxley, 2018). The irony of this will become
clear.
So migrants/refugees represent one of the four disparate combina-
tions, or groups, serving as substantive foci for a revised sociology of
shame and blame. Enough has surely been said in these few paragraphs
to call expectantly on extant sociologies of embodiment and the emo-
tions, of war, of feminist and post-colonial discourses, as well as more
obvious resources like stratification, ethnicity, politics and political
economy.
6 G. SCAMBLER

Long-Term Sick and Disabled

Chronic or long-term sickness is becoming more common in the UK
and globally as people live longer. It is now the primary challenge to
those concerned with delivering public health and health-care systems.
Disability forms an imperfect alliance with long-term sickness. Long-
term sickness has long been problematic in so-called developed societies,
not least since it typically involves a release from an ‘imperative to work’
that sits at the core of the ethos and ideology of capitalism. In the UK,
generally representative of many kindred Western societies, it was dele-
gated post-World War II to state-sanctioned and culturally recognised
experts, physicians, to make the crucial judgement as to whether people
with enduring health problems needed time off work. It was doctors in
other words who policed attendance at work by adjudicating on people’s
claims to be sick. More recently in the UK, however, this function has
been largely taken from doctors and contracted out to for-profit firms
employing non-clinically trained personnel to make such judgements in
a government-sponsored attempt to cut ‘sick pay’ and welfare support.
The tendency to regard long-term illness and/or disability as an indi-
vidual issue has come to be challenged by disability theorists and activists
with increasing vigour and subtlety over the last quarter of the twentieth
century. Disability activists rejected the notion that those with disabili-
ties, age-related or otherwise, are victims of a personal, ‘tragic’ interrup-
tion and disruption to an otherwise normal life course, insisting instead
on a ‘social model’. ‘Bad’ sickness and disability as opposed to ‘good’
health, ‘bad’ abnormality as opposed to ‘good’ normality, are socially
defined and socially accorded value. Moreover, these are contestable
attributions anchored in a set of social structures, cultures and institu-
tions that are themselves open to interrogation.
In the UK, one in five people are affected by what Thomas (2012),
in pursuit of a neutral term, calls ‘impairments’ (Papworth Trust, 2013);
and less than a fifth of these are born with their impairments. Table 1.1
gives some further details. Unsurprisingly, co-morbidities and disabilities
cluster as people get older. Some are more indicative of disadvantage,
stigma and outsider status than others. For these ageism can be, and
often is, compounded by stigmatisation, ranging from outright rejection
and job discrimination through sanctioning and benefit deprivation by
contracted for-profit companies to ‘blanking’ and more subtle interper-
sonal avoidance like that experienced by Jack Ashley.
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

Table 1.1 Disability in the UK: some statistics

• Disability affects one in five people (19%) in the UK.
• Only 17% of disabled people are born with their disabilities.
• The prevalence of disability rises with age: in 2011–2012, 6% of
children were disabled, 16% of adults of working age and 45% of
adults over state pension age.
• Disabled people are less likely to be in employment: in 2013, the
UK employment rate for working age disabled people was 49%,
compared to 82% of non-disabled people.
• The two most commonly stated enablers of employment for
adults with impairments are flexible hours/days and tax credits.
• The two most common barriers to work among adults with
impairments are a lack of job opportunities (43%) and difficulty
with transport (29%).
• Aged 18, disabled young people are more likely than their
non-disabled peers to not be in any form of education, employ-
ment or training (NEET): 22% compared to 15%.
• The Internet has become a key tool for those looking for work,
but in 2013 one-third (33%) of disabled people had never used
the Internet: disabled people are four times more likely to have
never used the Internet than non-disabled people.
• 19% of households that include a disabled person live in relative
income poverty, compared to 15% of those without a disabled
person.
• Disabled people’s living costs are 25% higher than those of
non-disabled people.
• The majority of impairments are not visible: less than 8% of disa-
bled people use wheelchairs.
• Around 15% of households that contained one or more disabled
persons felt their current home was not suitable for their needs
and required adaptations.
• Transport is the largest concern for disabled people in their local
area: pavement/road maintenance, access and frequency of pub-
lic transport are the biggest issues.
• More than 20% of disabled people have experienced harassment
in public because of their impairment.
8 G. SCAMBLER

• Nine out of 10 people with a learning disability have been vic-

tims of hate crime and bullying.
• The annual cost of bringing up a disabled child is three times
greater than that of bringing up a non-disabled child.
• About 60% of children and young people with both learning dif-
ficulties and mental ill health live in poverty.
• One in 4 people will experience mental ill health in any given
year.
• Over one in 4 disabled people say that they frequently do not
have choice and control over their daily lives.
• Disabled people are likely to be under-represented in public life:
in 2012–2013, one in 5 people were disabled, but only around
5% of public appointments and reappointments were filled by
disabled people.
• The WHO has predicted that depression will be the leading
cause of disability by 2020.
Adapted from Papworth Trust (2013) (see Scambler, 2018b)

Homeless
Historically, there has always been a small homeless ‘vagrant’ fraction in
Western populations. In the UK, it was an inconspicuous minority until the
Thatcher, and ‘Thatcherite’, 1980s; and since 2010, it has grown exponen-
tially. The statistics back up my personal observations over time in London:
my first academic appointment as a Research Associate at St Bartholomew’s
Hospital was in 1972 and I remained a commuter, latterly at UCL, until
retiring in 2013 (and have I have visited weekly subsequently). Rare—and
more tolerated—outsider presences adjacent to underground stations have
translated into multiple—less tolerated—pleas for loose change at reg-
ular intervals along London’s major highways. Finding spots to sleep has
become a skill in its own right, with hostels often deemed risk environ-
ments and many homeless-friendly public spaces being purposively ‘armed’
by spikes. The homeless have for many become workshy, ‘skiving’ beggars.
Definitions and legal responsibilities vary. In England, there has for
some time been no statutory duty on councils to house everyone who
becomes homeless, but they must find somewhere for a person to live
if they are demonstrably ‘vulnerable’, as in the case of families with
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

children or after an emergency such as a flood or fire (though this is

about to change and soon councils will be theoretically obligated to pre-
vent and relieve homelessness for everyone). Temporary accommoda-
tion while people’s claims for assistance are assessed or they are waiting
for somewhere suitable, can take the form of B&Bs, hostels or private
rentals. Rough sleeping—infrequently on the streets—is a separate and
distinctive social phenomenon. Accurate figures are difficult to obtain,
but this is undoubtedly on the rise. It is estimated that there has been
a rise of 169% since 2010 (and of 15% from 2016 to 2017): the figure
for autumn 2017 has been put at 4751 sleeping rough on any one night
in England, but this is in all probability a severe underestimate. Perhaps
predictably, it was the North West of England that saw the sharpest per-
centage increase in rough sleeping in 2017 (39%), followed by the East
Midlands (23%) and Yorkshire and Humber (20%) (www.homeless.org.
uk, 2018).
The homeless in general, and rough sleepers in particular, are classic
outsiders. Moreover, data on the true extent of their vulnerability are
now becoming both available and more accessible. An investigation by
the Guardian revealed that the number of people recorded dying on
streets or in temporary accommodation has more than doubled over
the past five years in the UK. People have been found dead in super-
market car parks, church graveyards and crowded hostels. The number
of deaths has risen year on year, from 31 in 2013 to 70 in 2017 (with at
least 230 dying over that period). The authors of this piece concluded
that this is likely to be a significant underestimate as no part of the UK
government records homeless death statistics at a national level, and local
authorities are not required to count rough sleeper deaths. The average
age of a rough sleeper death was 43, nearly half the UK life expectancy
(Greenfield & Marsh, 2018). These sparse statistics for England and
the UK, mere ‘guesstimates’, tell little of a compelling story of outsider
suffering: sub-zero temperatures in makeshift beds of rags and newspa-
pers, insults and worse from passers-by, being ‘moved on’ by local police
forces anxious to cleanse the streets for tourists and ‘special events’.

Sex Workers
Definitions of sex work, a more accurate as well as respectful
nomenclature than prostitution, tend to be far-reaching, in the UK
extending to all those who offer sexual services for any kind of remu-
neration, goods or services. As with migrants and refugees and the
10 G. SCAMBLER

homeless, we are reliant on ‘best guesses’ as to numbers. This is in part a

function of the sheer heterogeneity of a sub-population wrongly stereo-
typed as homogeneous, plus the fact that definitions often reflect moral
stances ‘for-or-against’. It is a population that includes individuals who
work only very occasionally, perhaps to earn money to fund a decent
Christmas for their children, to those who fashion long-term careers
(maybe by switching to ‘special services’ like sadomasochistic practices
as they enter middle age). Male sex workers are frequently overlooked,
despite the fact that more than one in three sex workers in London are
male, and ‘trans’, ‘shemales’, ‘ladyboys’ often go missing altogether.
Those resolutely against sex work tend to exaggerate elements of sex
trafficking. While sex trafficking certainly exists, and its difficult to see
why and how it might be defended, those who regard all sex workers as
victims are prone to see all migrant sex workers as necessarily trafficked;
in fact, in the UK the evidence suggests that very few migrant sex work-
ers have been trafficked. There is a tendency too to focus on and con-
demn sex trafficking rather than human trafficking per se.
There exists a hierarchy of prestige in sex work, despite the fact that
sex workers themselves sometimes decry such differentiation. But puta-
tive differences in prestige are associated with commensurate differences
in earning potential. Street workers typically earn the least, notwithstand-
ing how hard they work and the fortitude they show. Those who work in
brothels—legally or illegally: it remains illegal for two or more persons to
work simultaneously from the same premises—or from flats come next;
while those who work from and for escort agencies (agencies typically
take a third of the fees a client pays) tend to fare better; and the privi-
leged few, top models who work anonymously and discretely for mad-
ams, can earn considerably more.
Unsurprisingly, the monetary rewards on offer are the key motiva-
tion for recruitment to the sex industry. Contexts vary however: while
for some short-term gains are essential to feed drug use, for others cal-
culating decisions are opportunistically taken to accumulate sufficient
savings to transform otherwise hopeless life chances (Scambler, 2007).
But finance is not the only factor affecting recruitment. Sex work can run
in families; it can be triggered by peer contact; and it can deliver free-
dom and autonomy around the upbringing, schooling and care of young
children.
Clients are overwhelmingly men, but they come from all walks of life
and there are estimates that more than one in ten of all adult males in the
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

UK have at one time or another paid for sexual services. It goes with-
out saying that only those with high incomes can afford to consort with
workers charging in excess of £1000 per night or to take them abroad on
holidays (sometimes on business expenses). Client motivations too are
more complex than many suspect. Added to ‘sex uncomplicated by the
nuts and bolts of a relationship’, maybe incorporating clandestine fan-
tasies like spanking or domination, are the likes of sex addiction, bro-
ken relationships, loneliness and the despair of ever having a partner.
There are sex workers who offer their services exclusively to people with
disabilities.
The chapters that follow refer to and develop theories around stigma
and stigmatisation with reference to these four subpopulations, largely
but not exclusively in the UK. Firstly, a general theoretical frame is
outlined. Starting from the justly influential but increasingly queried
account of Goffman (1968) and extending to insider/outsider analyses
advanced by theorists from non-interactionist schools of sociology like
figurational sociology, a series of themes that inform and shape subse-
quent chapters are laid out. The frame with which the chapter concludes,
owing much to critical theory and critical realism, forms the conceptual
basis on which Chapters 3–6 build.
Chapter 3 deploys Habermas’ (1984, 1987) distinction between sys-
tem and lifeworld to consider the minutiae of shame and blame in the
latter. How, I ask, do these normative intrusions into the day-to-day con-
duct of affairs play out in people’s sense of self and of others. What is
it like to be ‘othered’? Here, the causal interplay of agency, culture and
structure is confronted. They are also re-theorised by reference not only
to Habermasian critical theory but also to the critical realism of Bhaskar
and Archer. Illustrations are forthcoming from the substantive literature
on the marginalised groups under scrutiny.
In Chapter 4, the focus is on ways in which macro- and micro-
theories might be optimally linked via the fostering of meso- or middle-
range theories. A series of meso-theories around stigma and deviance and
the insider/outsider binary are promulgated. Theorising of this sort, it
is maintained, is the very lifeblood of professional sociology. Accent is
placed on the salience of what I call metareflection, namely the mining of
extant theory and research from across and beyond the discipline of soci-
ology: the core contention here is that sociologists are under pressure to
‘compress the past’, to neglect past/historical scholarly accomplishments
in favour of up-to-date publications, in the process reinventing many a
12 G. SCAMBLER

wheel. Links are explored here between the latest phase of ‘financialised’
capitalism and the flotsam and jetsam of everyday interaction.
Chapter 5 revisits the notion that the social and sociological can never
‘wrap up’ or decisively conclude causal analyses of any social phenom-
ena. This is: (a) because biological, psychological and social mechanisms
are always and continuously in play—issuing in what critical realists call
‘tendencies’; (b) because one social mechanism can compromise or annul
another; (c) because agency and contingency have to be factored in; and
(d) because in any ‘open system’, or society, biological, psychological and
social mechanisms, though ‘irreducible’, do not, it follows from (a) to
(c), simply and unambiguously result in observable events.
In Chapter 6, the fruit of the framing and substantive references
offered throughout the volume culminate in a revised sociology of stigma
and new understanding of insider/outsider dynamics for the—many
now argue doomed—financial capitalism of the early twenty-first century
(Streeck, 2016; Wallerstein et al., 2013). A preliminary test of this ‘new
understanding’ is its capacity to expose and explicate the stigmatised,
outsider status of the four subpopulations under scrutiny. In this chapter
and the conclusion that succeeds it, an appropriate programme for con-
tinuing research is spelled out. This necessarily represents a transnational
or global challenge, matched by a global sociology; a global sociology
cannot collapse into an occidental sociology writ large.

References
Ashley, J. (1973). Journey into silence. Oxford: Bodley Head.
Beaumont, P. (2018, June 19). Record 68.5 million people feeling war or perse-
cution worldwide. The Guardian.
Goffman, E. (1968). Stigma: The management of spoiled identity. Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
Greenfield, P., & Marsh, S. (2018). Deaths of UK homeless people more than
double in five years. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com//society/2018/
apr/11/deaths-of-uk-homeless-people-more-than-double-in-five-years.
Habermas, J. (1984). Theory of communicative action, volume 1: Reason and the
rationalization of society. London: Heinemann.
Habermas, J. (1987). Theory of communicative action, volume 2: Lifeworld and
system: A critique of functionalist reason. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Homeless.org.uk. (2018). www.homeless.org.uk/facts/homelessness-in-numbers/
rough-sleeping-our-analysis.
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

International Organisation for Migration (IOM). (2011). Glossary on migration.

http://migrationdataportal.org/themes/forced-migration-or-displacement/.
Accessed 16 May 2018.
McIntyre, N., & Rice-Oxley, M. (2018, June 20). The list—It’s 34,361 and ris-
ing: How the list tallies Europe’s migrant bodycount. The Guardian.
Papworth Trust. (2013). Disability in the United Kingdom 2013: Facts and fig­
ures. http://www.papworth.org.uk. Accessed 6 August 2017.
Scambler, G. (2007). Sex work stigma: Opportunist migrants in London.
Sociology, 41, 1079–1096.
Scambler, G. (2018a). Sociology, health and the fractured society: A critical realist
account. London: Routledge.
Scambler, G. (2018b). Heaping blame on shame: ‘Weaponising stigma’ for neo-
liberal times. Sociological Review, 66, 766–782.
Streeck, W. (2016). How will capitalism end? London: Verso.
Thomas, C. (2012). Theorizing disability and chronic illness: Where next for
perspectives in medical sociology? Social Theory and Health, 10, 209–228.
Wallerstein, I., Collins, R., Mann, M., Derluguian, G., & Calhoun, C. (2013).
Does capitalism have a future? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Philosophical investigations (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
 CHAPTER 2

Theoretical Perspectives on Shame

and Blame

Abstract This chapter gives critical consideration to some of the main

sociological approaches to, and theories of, stigma. Goffman’s work is
appraised in some detail and its limitations exposed. This is followed by
discussions of other insider/outsider analyses, encompassing the figura-
tional studies of Elias. Themes of the relationships between insiders or
the established and outsiders or strangers are explored. Finally, the chap-
ter introduces two types of social theory that inform this investigation,
namely critical theory and critical realism.

Keywords Goffman · Elias · Insider/outsider dialectics ·

Critical theory · Critical realism

The sociological literature on stigma often seems to be caught in

a Goffmanesque time warp, though as we shall see there is a whiff of
change in the air. Goffman’s focus was on the rules governing everyday
interactions in what has since been defined as the ‘lifeworld’. Like the
later Wittgenstein (1958), Goffman afforded full recognition and, as it
were, credibility and credit to the subtle structures and practices that
comprise the raw materials for our getting by day-to-day. It is worth
dwelling briefly on this at the outset, drawing not only on Goffman’s
classic exegesis in Stigma: The Management of Spoiled Identity (1968a),
but on his more generic and wide-ranging The Presentation of Self in
Everyday Life (1969). It is not, I shall contend in this short volume,

© The Author(s) 2020 15

G. Scambler, A Sociology of Shame and Blame,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23143-9_2
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16 G. SCAMBLER

that Goffman got it wrong, more that there are telling ‘absences’ in his
dramaturgical perspective and in the primary focus of his research.
Goffman’s primary interest was in the structure of mundane or every-
day interaction. His micro-sociological project was to expose the inter-
actional rules that, knowingly or otherwise, people follow: these rules,
he maintained, regulate interaction. Moreover, the structuring of mun-
dane face-to-face interaction via such rules functions to stabilise the
social order. His analyses were termed ‘dramaturgical’ because he noted
that people conduct themselves in the lifeworld much as actors perform
in the theatre, that is, in accordance with learned scripts. He specified
a number of what he called ‘ground rules’ that announce the means
available to people to accomplish their goals. These provide norma-
tive regulation. To cite an instance, one primary ground rule has to do
with ‘maintenance of face’, which requires people—like actors perform-
ing on a stage—to present and sustain positive images of the self and to
acknowledge the relevance of this same process for those with whom
they interact. This is accomplished through ‘acting lines’: participants in
interaction typically act to prevent lines from being discredited, in this
way avoiding loss of face for all those involved. When push comes to
shove, social life is predictable to the extent to which those who interact
arrive at a tacit or consensual working definition of the situation.
Definitions of the situation can, and often do, reflect the ­distribution
of power in a group or a society. Goffman found in his study of
a psychiatric unit, for example, that an individual’s performed self can
be, and frequently is, challenged by others proffering a rival definition.
The moral? The self, Goffman (1968b) asserts, is not a property of the
individual to whom it is attributed, but rather resides ‘in the pattern of
social control that is exerted in connection with the person by himself
and those around him’ (note the predictable and sexist phrasing of the
patriarchal day). The self, in other words, is the product of an institu­
tional nexus of performances (though it should be stressed that the psy-
chiatric unit—an example of what Goffman called a ‘total institution’—is
an extreme form).
Rule-breaking, Goffman argued, is as important for the mainte-
nance of social order as rule-following. Moreover, rule-breaking, or
‘remedial interchanges’, is very common. This is because interactional
exchanges are structured primarily to allow individuals to ‘adjust’ while
pursuing their personal goals with a minimum of fuss and disruption.
Rule-breaking of this type, typically accomplished through ‘accounts’,
 2 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SHAME AND BLAME 17

‘apologies’ or ‘requests’, gets the traffic moving again (Goffman, 1971).

It is generally more felicitous to overlook individuals’ rule-breaking than
to confront them or hold them to account. In his account of the routine,
everyday management of stigma, Goffman developed and elaborated
on this general framing of social interaction. Stigma, he rightly insisted,
is not an attribute intrinsic to individuals but part of a system of social
relations:

the term stigma, then, will be used to refer to an attribute that is deeply
discrediting, but it should be seen that a language of relationships, not
attributes, is really needed. An attribute that stigmatizes one type of pos-
sessor can confirm the usualness of another, and therefore is neither credit-
able nor discreditable as a thing in itself. (Goffman, 1968a: 13)

Systems of social relations differ by time and place: so an attribute, trait

or condition that is stigmatising in one era, society, community or con-
text may not be in another.
People can be discredited or discreditable. With the former, the stigma
is obvious and cannot be concealed, as with a conspicuous disability for
example. In such instances, the problem for its possessor is the manage-
ment of the—often stereotypical—impressions that others have of her or
him and the behaviour they anticipate or predict in consequence. With
the latter, the stigma is inconspicuous and therefore the option to con-
ceal it—to ‘pass as normal’—arises. The problem for its possessor here is
the management of information: who to tell, when, how and with what
consequences.
Goffman discerned three basic types of stigma. The first is associ-
ated with ‘abominations of the body’ or ‘the various physical deformi-
ties’. The second denotes ‘blemishes of individual character’ interpreted
as ‘weakness of will, domineering or unnatural passions, treacherous and
rigid beliefs, and dishonesty, these being inferred from a known record
of, for example, mental disorder, imprisonment, addiction, alcoholism,
homosexuality, unemployment, suicidal attempts, and radical politi-
cal behaviour’. And third come tribal stigmas linked to race, nation and
religion that can be ‘transmitted through lineages and equally contam-
inate all members of a family’ (Goffman, 1968a: 14). What we ‘nor-
mals’ do in relation to people caught up in one or other of this triad,
Goffman averred, is construct a stigma theory or ideology to account for
their ‘inferiority’ and the danger they represent, on occasions and often
18 G. SCAMBLER

unthinkingly rationalising an animosity rooted in other differences, such

as those of social class.
Goffman’s principal commitment was to analysing in meticulous detail
the lifeworld transactions—the dynamics of the presentation of self in the
specific context of ‘spoiled identities’—in which the stigmatised inevi-
tably become involved. The additional concepts he introduces will fea-
ture in discussions throughout this book and do not require rehearsal at
this point. What I want to do instead is to highlight key criticisms of his
work. To reiterate, while I think these significant and compelling they do
not in my view render Goffman’s sensitisation of the concept of stigma
redundant. It will be readily apparent that there is much in his work
that speaks to the lived experience of members of the four groups—mi-
grants/refugees, the long-term sick/disabled, the homeless and sex
workers—selected for special attention.

Goffman’s Limitations
One of the most significant planks of Durkheim’s contribution to the
genesis of sociological investigation was his (methodologically holist)
insistence on the discipline’s pursuit of ‘social facts’; indeed, he viewed
sociology as the empirical study of social facts. Social facts here comprise
the values, norms and structures that transcend individuals and can exer-
cise constraint and control over them. For him concepts like social class
cannot be reduced to what individuals think and do. Even what strike as
uniquely individual acts, like suicide, must be broached sociologically as
irreducibly social. Social facts act on individuals as ‘externally’ constrain-
ing and/or controlling. Durkheim here paves for a general and perva-
sive criticism of Goffman’s input on stigma. It is not just that his point
of interest is the micro-sociology of social/dramaturgical exchange.
It is rather that it is misleading and unacceptable to ignore or neglect
‘external’ macro- and meso-social constraints/controls on the lifeworld.
Interestingly, Tyler (2018) has recently noted that Goffman actively
resisted, even condemned, attempts to broach macro- and meso-, and
especially macro- and meso-political, phenomena in the name of socio-
logical endeavour.
One way of illustrating the importance of Durkheimian social facts
is via the figurational sociology of Elias (2000). Elias specialised in the
long-term unfolding of social phenomena and their often unheralded
and gradual insinuation into people’s lives. He framed this in terms of
 2 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SHAME AND BLAME 19

specific contexts or ‘figurations’. Figurations stand for evolving networks

of interdependent humans (Quintaneiro, 2004). It is ‘process’ that acts
as the magnet for Elias, who was particularly interested in the connec-
tions between shifts in macro- and meso-social structures on the one
hand and psychological aspects of personhood on the other. Notable
here is The Established and the Outsiders (Elias & Scotson, 2008), which
lends itself to an interrogation of Goffmanesque and companion interac-
tionist analyses. It is of special pertinence to the increasingly topical issue
of migration and the plight of refugees.
So how might Elias’ figurational approach cause us to query and
amend Goffman’s dramaturgical focus? I maintain that Elias’ theorising
epitomises what is absent in Goffman’s. The work that witnessed the
light of day in The Established and the Outsiders was done by Scotson
under Elias’ supervision. It reported (their) research on a local commu-
nity on the outskirts of Leicester that they named ‘Winston Parva’. They
focused on three groups in particular: the first comprised established vil-
lage families who had been in Winston Parva for several generations and
were predominantly working class; the second consisted of middle-class
families who had moved into the neighbourhood to occupy newly built
housing; and the third, mostly working class, were newcomers resid-
ing in a different segment of the village. The results of the study were
unanticipated. They found that relationships across all the groups were
characterised by material exclusion and by social exclusion via gossip,
group disgrace and social control. As outsiders, they were stigmatised
as unclean and deviant, leading to ‘us’ versus ‘them’ representations and
enactments (Smith, 2001). Most significant therefore was the binary:
established ‘versus’ outsiders. The former were characterised by strong
social cohesion and networks and shared backgrounds, while the latter
comprised novitiates who were essentially strangers to each other and
lacked access to significant networks and influential (institutional) posi-
tions (Petintseva, 2015).
Elias was interested in how power is exercised. He concluded that
although material and economic inequalities play their part, power can-
not and must not be reduced to them. Power is relational and dynamic.
Like Weber, he applauded Marx’s contribution, largely accepting the
weight of modes of production on power relations and class forma-
tion; but he went on to insist that symbolic factors and status also have
their input, the more so when power balances are uneven. He left ample
room, in other words, for ‘socio-psychological processes (the creation of
20 G. SCAMBLER

group identity, labelling, emotions)’ (Petintseva, 2015: 7). Moreover,

Elias also took issue with overly simple emphases on social structures as
causal mechanisms. Ethnicity, for example, is for him an outcome of the
unequal distribution of power, not what actually determines people’s
positions and relations in the first place.
Outsiders for Elias comprise groups that do not have the requisite
social networks and can expect to meet with intolerance, suspicion and
possibly more blunt modes of rejection and control. The established,
on the other hand, enjoy access to power resources denied to outsiders
from the outset. They can mobilise these resources to ‘other’ outsid-
ers, to keep them ‘in their place’ and to re-affirm the position of their
own group: they develop a kind of collective fantasy that justifies their
aversion to outsider groups as well as their own superordinate status
(Stanley, 2017). Elias’ established–outsiders figurations, it is important
to note, require us to look beyond: (a) the assumptions of absolute and
one-sided exclusion and (b) the typical dualities of rationality or irra-
tionality. His figurational sociology seeks to escape from each of Dawe’s
(1970) ‘two sociologies’, the one led by the concept of agency and the
other by that of structure. Goffman is contextualised, not abandoned.
Fortuitously, a number of authors have also made direct links to
migrants and refugees (Petintseva, 2015; Stanley, 2017). Petintseva, for
example, has interrogated the relevance of Elias’ established–outsiders
analysis for understanding the circumstances of ‘new migrants’ to Western
Europe. She delineates four dimensions to the process of outsidering
these escapees:

• the relatively powerless position: in economic terms, but also in

terms of access to social or formal facilities, services or institutions
(e.g. legal status, possibilities of mobility, status differentials in insti-
tutional contexts);
• the lack of protection and opportunities afforded by membership in
powerful social networks;
• limited internal cohesion between new migrants as a whole, rooted
in the fact that they are all ‘new’ (Petintseva argues here that Elias’
analysis needs to be ‘de-localised’, so an example here would be the
possibility of resisting in terms of a political voice);
• representations and stereotypes of these groups as threatening,
images based on the socially unacceptable characteristics of a small
minority of group members (e.g. issues of social distancing, ‘ethiciz-
ing’ and problematising particular attributes).
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VOL. III, PP 1–30, PL 1 MARCH 28, 1891.

THE
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE.

SOUTH AMERICA.
ANNUAL ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT,

GARDINER G. HUBBARD.

(Presented to the Society December 19, 1890.)

Two years ago I selected for my annual address Africa, or the Dark
Continent; last year Asia, the Land of Mountains and Deserts; this year
I have chosen South America, the Land of Rivers and Pampas.

NAT GEOG. MAG. VOL. III, 1891,

PL. 1.
 From the International Cylopedia, by permission of Dodd, Mead & Company.

The recent meeting of the Pan-American Congress has called attention

to South America, a part of our continent under republican forms of
government and rich in products which we lack, while it relies mainly
on other foreign countries for goods which we manufacture. North
America and South America should be more closely united, for the one
is the complement of the other.

The prominent features of South America are its long ranges of

mountains—next to the Himalayas the highest in the world,—its great
valley, and its immense plateau extending from the Straits of Magellan
to the Caribbean sea.

THE MOUNTAINS.

The Andes rise in the extreme south at Cape Horn, run in a northerly
course through Patagonia and southern Chili; thence continuing in
three nearly parallel ranges, the western chain called the Andes, the
others known as the Cordilleras, through Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador to
Colombia. The Cordilleras and the Andes are connected in several
places by knots or cross-chains of mountains. In Colombia the Andes
turn to the northwest, reaching their lowest elevation at the Panama
canal, and continue thence, through Central America and North
America as the Rocky Mountains, to the Arctic ocean. Near the source
of the Magdalena and Cauca rivers in Colombia, the eastern range is
deflected to the east along the northern coast of South America. The
central range disappears between the Magdalena and Cauca rivers.

The Andes form the water-shed of the continent. The waters on the
western slope flow into the Pacific ocean. The rivers that rise on the
eastern slope, in northern Peru and Ecuador, force their way through
the Cordilleras and at their foot drain the montaña of Bolivia, Peru and
Brazil. In the southern part of Peru and upper Chili there is a broad
sierra or plateau, at an elevation of from twelve to fourteen thousand
feet. The streams that rise in this sierra either empty into salt or
alkaline lakes or sink into the ground.

Unlike all other long ranges of mountains, the continental or eastern

side of the Cordilleras is nearly as precipitous as that extending to the
Pacific. Craters of extinct volcanoes and volcanoes now in eruption are
found in all parts of the chain. In Ecuador there are fifty-two
volcanoes, and twenty of these, covered with perpetual snow and
presided over by Chimborazo and Cotopaxi, rise out of a group of
mountains encircling the valley of Quito, and are all visible from a
single point. Three are active and five others have been in eruption at
one or more times since the conquest. One of these, Sangai, is the
most active volcano on the globe: it sends forth a constant stream of
fire, water, mud and ashes, and some assert that it has done so
without intermission for 300 years; 267 explosions have been counted
in one hour. This is also the land of earthquakes: in 1868, 50,000 lives,
we are told, were lost in one day; the tremor was felt over four
countries and from the Andes to the Sandwich Islands. The tidal wave
washed a gunboat of the United States on shore at Arica in lower Peru,
1000 miles to the south, and sixteen hours later the wave was felt
across the Pacific at New Zealand.

A range of mountains separates Eastern Venezuela and Guiana from

the valley of the Amazon. Other ranges south of the Amazon run
southwestwardly, following the Atlantic coast line from Cape St. Roque
to the Rio de la Plata.

RIVER SYSTEMS.

A great oceanic current flows along the western coast of Africa to the
equator, where it is deflected across the Atlantic ocean and becomes
the equatorial current. On reaching the coast of South America near
Cape St. Roque, it is again deflected north and south. Trade winds
blowing over the equatorial current reach the coast at Brazil
surcharged with vapor; as they follow up the valley of the Amazon the
vapors are partially condensed and frequent showers refresh the land;
but when the clouds at the foot-hills of the Andes meet the colder
winds from the south and strike the snow summits of the Cordilleras,
all the moisture is condensed, and the rain falls in tropical showers for
half the year and waters the largest and richest valley in the world.
In this valley, among the Cordilleras, three great rivers—the Orinoco,
the Amazon and La Plata—rise. The mountain ranges north and south
of the Amazon divide this great valley into three lesser valleys, down
which the Orinoco, the Amazon and La Plata flow, watering three-
fourths of South America.

The Orinoco.

The headwaters of the Orinoco rise in two ranges of mountains; the

Cordilleras in the west, and the mountains of Venezuela many hundred
miles to the east. Four hundred tributaries, abounding in beautiful falls
and cataracts, unite to form this great river.

The whole valley for 1600 miles is filled with dense and tangled forests.
Noble trees of unrivalled beauty blossom in endless prodigality. Birds of
gorgeous plumage nestle in their lofty recesses. Tall ferns, vines,
creeping plants and parasites form a dense tangle of undergrowth,
swarming with life. Myriads of insects in great variety, reptiles of
strange and singular form, lizards and venemous serpents find their
homes and sustenance in the wild, dense mass of vegetation.

The Amazon.

The valley of the Amazon collects its waters from a region 1800 miles
wide from north to south and 2500 miles long from the Andes to the
Atlantic ocean. Even at the foot of the Andes the Amazon is a mighty
river. The valley rapidly narrows to a width of 600 or 700 miles, and
then more gradually to the ocean, where it is only 150 miles wide. Its
total fall from the foot-hills of the Andes to the Atlantic is very slight,
not over three or four hundred feet, and probably considerably less.

The rims of the valley are formed of diorite and sandstone, and are
raised only a little above the flood-plain, which is formed of mud and
silt, the detritus brought down by the Amazon and its tributaries. The
flood-plain is from fifty to one hundred miles wide, gradually narrowing
as it approaches the ocean. Through this valley the Amazon cuts its
way, separating often into channels which sometimes run parallel to
each other for several hundred miles, frequently forming large islands,
or expanding into lakes. Similar flood-plains are found on all its larger
tributaries.

Up from the ocean into this valley an immense tidal wave rolls, with a
bore, twice a day, forcing back the current of the Amazon 500 miles
and inundating a portion of the flood-plain.

In the early autumn the equatorial rise commences in the headwaters

of its tributaries, far south of the equator. The rains and melting snow
raise the streams, and these the waters of the Amazon. As the sun
crosses the equator and moves to the north the rain follows its course,
and the branches that have their source in the east and northeast add
their flood to the waters of the southerly branches. The flood in the
Amazon is thus continued for nearly six months, raising its waters from
30 to 50 feet. The channels are filled, and the flood-plains are
overflowed. The whole valley becomes a net-work of navigable waters,
with islands and channels and lakes innumerable, forming a great
inland sea, which the Brazilians call the Mediterranean of America. The
upland, though only a little above the flood-plain, is rarely overflowed.

The plants and animals of the flood-plain were formerly considered as

distinct from those of the upland as are the plants and animals of
Europe from those of America; but later investigations show that there
is but little difference between the species.

The sea breeze blows up the valley about a thousand miles. Then for
1500 miles the atmosphere is stagnant and sultry; the climate is that
of a permanent vapor bath. The dense foliage forms dark, lofty vaults
which the sunlight never penetrates, and over all hangs a perpetual
mist. The abundance and beauty of vegetation increases, and the trees
which at the mouth of the river blossom only once a year, here bloom
and bear fruit all the year round.

Many great rivers run into the Amazon from the north and the south,
most of them navigable, for many hundred miles. The Madeira, its
greatest tributary, after running 2000 miles, empties into the king of
rivers, without making any perceptible difference in its width or depth.

This mighty current, rushing into the ocean, meets the equatorial
current and for over one hundred miles keeps on nearly a straight
course, when the stronger and mightier oceanic current deflects it to
the north. At from 200 to 300 miles from land, the sea is strongly
tinged, and in April and May has nearly the clay-yellow hue of the
Amazon. And even further north, about 400 miles from its mouth, the
naturalist on the Amazon tells us, "we passed numerous patches of
floating grass mingled with tree trunks and withered foliage; among
these I espied many fruits of the Amazonian palm. And this was the
last I saw of the Amazon."

The Rio de la Plata.

The La Plata, the outlet of the waters of central South America, is

formed by the union of the Uruguay and Parana, about 150 miles from
the ocean; a little lower down, at Montevideo, it is 62 miles wide and
widens rapidly to the Atlantic, where it discharges more water than all
the rivers of Europe. The tributaries of the Parana are fan-shaped. Its
most eastern branches rise in the mountains of Brazil, within seventy
miles of the Atlantic ocean; and 1500 miles away, on the other side of
the continent, its most western tributaries rise only 125 miles from the
Pacific.

Steamers ascend the Parana, Paraguay and Cuyaba, 2100 miles to

Cuyaba, and the river with its branches is navigable for 5000 miles.

The San Francisco.

The San Francisco, about 1800 miles long, rises near Rio de Janeiro
and flows north about 1200 miles between parallel ranges of
mountains, then turns east and forces its way through the coast range
to the Atlantic ocean. It runs through the gold and diamond regions of
Brazil, and has a considerable population along its banks. It has many
falls and rapids, and considerable slack-water navigation.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION.

In Asia, the different countries have natural boundaries; the people,

soil and climate of one country are unlike those of others. In Europe
there are few natural boundaries, though different races inhabit the
several states.

In South America only one dominant race is found, and though natural
boundaries exist, yet they do not serve as boundaries to the different
states, other than Venezuela and Guiana. Venezuela and Guiana are
watered by the Orinoco and by several rivers that flow from the
Amazonian mountains to the ocean. The whole coast is low and fertile,
but hot and unhealthy. The principal product is sugar, raised by
negroes and coolies. The interior is sultry and thickly wooded; it is
inhabited by Indian tribes, the principal of which are the cannibal
Caribs, and by negroes as uncivilized as any of the tribes in Africa.
Guiana is controlled by the English, French, and Dutch. Cayenne, the
prison for French convicts, is the capital of French Guiana.

Colombia and Ecuador occupy the northwestern part of South America.

They are situated on both sides of the Andes, and have every variety
of climate. The country is well watered; fertile but unhealthy on the
coast, fertile and healthy on the elevated plains, cold and barren on
the mountains.

In Brazil, besides the Amazon, La Plata and San Francisco, there are
several large rivers with fertile valleys; but occasional droughts,
sometimes lasting for two years, will prevent portions of Brazil from
becoming densely inhabited.

On the Pacific coast south of Ecuador, the rainfall becomes less and
less. For three thousand miles along the coast of Peru and Chili there is
no natural harbor; a plain from ten to fifty miles in width extends from
the Pacific to the foot-hills of the Andes. The Antarctic current runs
along this coast; the southeasterly winds blow over it on to the land
and cool the air; but as the winds are of low temperature their scanty
vapor is dissipated by the heat radiated from the land, and not a drop
of rain refreshes the thirsty soil. Many mountain torrents run from the
snow-clad summits of the Andes, and the beauty of their narrow
valleys forms a grateful contrast to the dry and barren sands of the
plain.

In the southern part of Chili and in that part formerly called Patagonia,
rain is abundant and the country is fertile.

The longest stretch of low and comparatively level land to be found in

the world extends through the center of South America. A boat starting
from the Caribbean sea could sail up the Orinoco over a thousand
miles, then down the Casquiare, which runs from the Orinoco into the
Rio Negro, down that river to the Amazon, up the Amazon to the
Madeira, then up that river and one of its branches through Brazil and
Bolivia, and with a short portage of six and a half miles to one of the
branches of the Paraguay, down the Paraguay and La Plata to the
ocean.

The level land crosses the La Plata and continues southward through
the Argentine Republic and Patagonia to the Straits of Magellan. Within
this plain lie all the interior of Venezuela and Brazil, a part of Bolivia, all
Paraguay, Uruguay, and the Argentine Republic. The pampas resemble
our prairies, but run from north to south, while the prairies run from
east to west.

The streams in the plain south of the valley of the La Plata rise in the
Andes and flow southeastward to the Atlantic.

THE ABORIGINES.

The aborigines of America, except the Esquimaux, are unlike the

natives of other countries; the most marked difference is in their
language. They are divided into a number of tribes differing from each
other in some respects, yet with manners, customs and religious
beliefs generally similar.

In South America there are more than one hundred distinct languages,
and two thousand dialects. About five or six million Indians have as
many dialects as are found among the 800,000,000 inhabitants of
Europe and Asia. Their languages are polysynthetic, being of a higher
type than the agglutinative languages. In the polysynthetic tongue the
substantive, adjective and verb are joined or combined, and oftentimes
a whole sentence will be comprised in a single word.

The natives in the valleys of the Orinoco and Amazon are forced to
cultivate a little ground on the flood-plains, as the forests are thick and
impenetrable. They live principally on the fruit of the palm (of which
there are five hundred varieties), cocoa and bananas, fish and turtles.
There are no roads or paths through the forests except the numerous
channels of the rivers, called igarapes or furos. The tribes on the
pampas live principally on game and wild cattle.

Humboldt tells us that the navigator on the Orinoco sees with surprise
at night the palm trees illuminated by large fires. From the trunks of
these trees are suspended the habitations of a tribe of Indians, who
make their fires on mats hung in the air and filled with moist clay. The
same palm tree furnishes also food and wine and clothing, and thus
supplies every want and even the luxuries of life.

The Indian race as a whole is believed to be superior to both the negro

and the Malay, as neither of those races has ever attained to the
civilization of the Incas of Peru or of the Indians of Mexico and the
Aztecs of Central America. Many of their myths and folk tales are
common, not only to the Indians of one part of the country, but also to
other tribes in distant parts of the continent, and even to the negroes
of Africa, and the Arabs of upper Egypt. All the tribes on the continent
have substantially the same habits of life, the same methods of
warfare, the same general characteristics, and a language built
substantially on the same plan.
From these observations it might seem that the Indian tribes of South
America were allied to those of Africa or to the Malays, but on further
consideration the similarity seems due rather to a like stage of
civilization than to identity of race.

THE INCAS OF PERU.

In crossing from Arequipa in Peru to La Paz in Bolivia, the road ascends

the Andes, makes a slight descent into the barren, desolate valley
between the Andes and Cordilleras, crosses Lake Titicaca, and then
descends to La Paz. Lake Titicaca, the largest lake of South America, is
on a plateau between twelve and thirteen thousand feet in height, the
most elevated table land on the globe, excepting Thibet. This lake is
surrounded by lofty, snow-clad mountains, the highest of which is
Illampa, 22,300 feet in height.

On this lake are the remains of the most ancient civilization of South
America. Cyclopean ruins of temples and fortresses stand as perpetual
monuments of a vanished culture; when and by whom they were
erected, we know not; their builders left no other record of their
existence. The wandering Indians told the first Spaniards that they
existed before the sun shone in the heavens. From one of the rocky
islands of Lake Titicaca, about the year 1000 or 1100, the Sun, parent
of mankind and giver of every good gift, taking compassion on the
degraded condition of the Indians, sent two of his children, Manco
Capac and Mama Oello Huaco, to gather the wandering tribes into
communities, to teach them the arts of civilized life and to inculcate
the worship of the Sun. From Lake Titicaca, this brother and sister,
husband and wife, went down the valley to Cuzco, where they were
bidden to found an empire. Manco Capac was thus the first Inca. There
were ten or twelve Incas before the conquest of Peru. Their conquests
extended through the entire valley of the Cordilleras, until over four
hundred tribes, with a population of many millions, became subject to
their dominion.
The territory of the Incas extended from the southern part of Chili
northward into Colombia, beyond Quito, a distance of two thousand
miles, and west to the Pacific Ocean. On the eastern slope of the
Cordilleras, toward the great plain of the Amazon, the Incas met a
stronger and more savage people, with whom they were in constant
warfare. In the several passes of the Cordilleras they constructed
fortifications to protect their borders and prevent invasion.

The capital of the territory, Cuzco, was situated in a beautiful valley ten
thousand feet above the sea. Amidst the Alps, such a valley would be
buried in eternal snow, but within the tropics it enjoys a perpetual
spring. Here the Incas loved to dwell, and remains of immense
fortresses, palaces and temples, testify to their power and culture, and
to the number of their subjects. Tens of thousands of laborers must
have been required to construct such edifices. When we reflect that
these people had no beasts of burden except the llama, which could
only carry light loads, and no mechanical means for transporting the
vast blocks of stone used in constructing these buildings, we are
astonished at what they accomplished. The pyramids of Egypt are not
more wonderful.

Great highways were built, running north, south and west, connecting
different parts of the Empire. One followed the valley between the
Cordilleras and Andes to Quito, another crossed the Andes and
followed the sea-coast north and south to the extreme limits of their
country. All traveling was on foot. Large and comfortable tambos, or
inns, were erected every few miles, and larger ones at the end of a
day's journey. Couriers were stationed at regular intervals, each of
whom had his allotted station, between which and the next it was his
duty to run at a certain pace bearing his message, and on his approach
to the next station he signalled to the next chasquir, as the couriers
were called, to be ready to carry forward the message. In this way, it is
said, about 150 miles a day were made.

These couriers traveled more quickly than the mail-carriers of Europe,

and the means of communication were then, Squier tells us, far better
than they are to-day. Many of these old tambos are still maintained.
One in which Squier spent the night was 180 feet in length, with rooms
forming three sides of a court.

The country of the Incas had every variety of climate, and the products
were those of every part of the new world. On the coast, perpetual
summer reigns, with all the variety and beauty of tropical vegetation.
At a higher elevation, the trees are always green, and while one kind
sheds its blossoms and ripens its fruit another is budding and unfolding
its bloom. Meantime, on the top of the mountains is eternal winter. In
some places, as at Potosi, the changes of temperature are frequent
and extremes of heat and cold are experienced in a single day. The
weather in the early morning is frosty; in the forenoon, mild and
balmy; in the afternoon, scorching, and in the evening, cool and
delicious.

On the Pacific slope of the Andes, reservoirs were constructed, from

which irrigating canals watered the whole plain now lying desolate and
barren.

The conquered tribes were incorporated into the nation and became
the people of the Incas. If the conquered tribe was strong and warlike,
some of its members were removed to distant parts of the country and
were replaced by the inhabitants of those regions, to whom privileges
and immunities were given as compensation for the change of home.
The conquered tribes quickly realized the benefits of the rule of the
Incas and became faithful and loyal subjects.

The government of the Incas was a paternal despotism controlling the

most minute affairs of daily life. Knowledge, the Incas taught, "was not
intended for the people, but for those of generous ability, for it would
render persons of low degree vain and arrogant."

The Incas established a communal system similar to that of Russia.

One-third of the land belonged to the Inca, one-third to the priests of
the Sun, and the remainder to the people, who were required to
cultivate the land of the Inca and of the priests, as well as their own.
The land was divided among the families yearly, according to their
number. Every newly married couple received a stated portion which
was increased as the family increased.

Their only means of writing was by a cord, called quippus, about two
feet long, composed of threads of different colors twisted together,
from which a quantity of smaller threads hung like a knotted fringe.
The colors denoted sensible objects or sometimes abstract ideas,
though the principal use of the quippus was for arithmetical purposes.

The civilization of the Incas appears to have been of a higher order

than that of the Mexicans. It is not probable that hieroglyphics were in
use among any of the South American Indians, though it is said that
traces of a pictorial alphabet have been found. The people were
contented and happy, although they were deprived of personal liberty,
although their daily life was supervised by their rulers, and although
they held only communal rights of property. They had neither ambition
nor strong love of country.

When Pizarro landed in Peru there were two Incas, one at Cuzco and
the other at Quito, and the bitter conflict which was raging between
them made the conquest of both easy. Pizarro had only 180 followers,
but they were Spanish cavaliers, carrying fire-arms; and with this small
force he overturned the Incas and enslaved the people. The
descendants of the Quichuas, or the people of the Incas, still inhabit
the land—a mild, apathetic, servile and dejected race. It is said that
after the conquest the women put on a black mantle, which they have
worn ever since, as perpetual mourning for the last of the Incas.

There are a few descendants of Spaniards in Peru, but the population

consists chiefly of the descendants of the Quichuas and mixed
Spaniards and Quichuas. The Peruvians of to-day are less civilized than
those who lived 400 years ago; they have less liberty and are poorer.

DISCOVERY OF THE AMAZON.

Great rivers have usually been discovered and explored by ascending

them from the ocean to their sources; the Congo and the Amazon
were explored downward from their sources to the ocean.

Three hundred and fifty years ago, Gonzalo Pizarro, then governor of
Upper Peru, heard of a land of silver and gold, spices and precious
stones; a land where spring reigned and all tropical fruits abounded.
He determined to follow the little stream which, rising in the Andes,
near Quito, flowed eastward; to explore the country, and find the
happy land. He set out with 350 Cavaliers, mounted on Spanish horses
and attended by 4000 Indian slaves.

The first part of the route was easy; the little stream soon became a
river, then broadened into the Napo; but the farther they went, the
slower and more difficult was their progress as they passed from the
open forest and the cool and invigorating breezes of the Andes into the
sultry valley of the Napo. Their way now led through forests more
dense, darker and more impenetrable than those described by Stanley,
for the valley of the Amazon is richer than the valley of the Congo.
Natives armed with poisoned arrows opposed their progress; food
became scarce, treachery was on every side, and their number
gradually diminished by death and by desertion of the slaves.

The natives told them of a greater river than the Napo which they
would find a few days' voyage farther down. This river, they said,
flowed through a more populous and richer country, where food was
abundant and gold was found in every stream. Pizarro determined to
build a bark and to send Orellano as commander to find and return
with food and succor. For this vessel, the forests furnished the timber;
the shoes of the horses were converted into nails, distilled gum was
used for pitch, and the garments of the soldiers were a substitute for
oakum. In two months, a brigantine was launched, the first European
vessel that ever floated on the waters of the Amazon. The Napo grew
broader and deeper as the little company rapidly floated down, until it
became a mile wide. Three days after they left Pizarro, they saw before
them a river, many times larger than the Napo, which the Indians
called Parana-tinega, King of Waters; but we call it the Amazon. There
was no cultivation, little food could be obtained, and the Indians were
hostile instead of friendly. What was to be done? Behind them was the
wilderness, before them the promised land. The journey back would be
difficult and dangerous; the temptation to explore the wonderful river
was too great to resist. One man alone was faithful to Pizarro, and he
was left on the bank while Orellano sailed down the river. The wonder
of the explorers daily increased as other rivers larger than the Napo
flowed into the Amazon, now on the north, more frequently on the
south. Month after month passed, the river grew so broad that they
could not see from one side to the other. Great islands were passed,
channels running parallel with the main stream larger than any river
they had ever seen. Still on they went, till after several months they
reached the Atlantic Ocean. Then they sailed north in their little boat,
skirting the coast to Trinidad, where they found a vessel which bore
them to Spain. They recounted the story of the great river; the
wonderful country through which they passed; and the rich mines of
which they had heard. They told fabulous tales of the Amazonians they
had encountered, strong and masculine women, armed with bows and
arrows, living by themselves, admitting men into their country only one
month in the year, killing or sending away the male children and
training the girls to become amazons and warriors.

Orellano was received by the Queen; his treachery was forgotten and a
new expedition was sent out under his command; but he died before
reaching the river.

Meantime, Pizarro and his followers slowly and with difficulty made
their way down the Napo, taking as many months to reach the Amazon
as Orellano had taken days. They looked in vain for their companions,
but found only the solitary man who had been left behind, scarcely
alive, and from him learned of Orellano's desertion. Further
explorations being impossible, they turned back, reached Quito two
years after their departure, their horses gone, their arms broken or
rusted, the skins of wild animals their only clothing. "The charnel
house seemed to have given up its dead, as they glided onward like a
troop of spectres." Half of the Indians had perished, and of the three
hundred and fifty cavaliers only eighty were left.
Such was the end of an expedition which for dangers and hardships,
length of duration, and constancy displayed is probably unmatched in
the annals of American discovery.

GUIANA.

Guiana is the only country of South America not inhabited by the Latin
race. It was acquired for Great Britain by one who acted contrary to his
instructions in attacking a power, Spain, with which his own country
was at peace.

Gonzalo Pizarro, on his journey down the Napo in 1539, heard

wonderful stories of a golden city far away on the banks of the
Orinoco, surrounded by mountains of gold. Rumors of this golden city
were carried by English navigators to Great Britain, with legends of a
prince of Guiana, whose body, first smeared with turpentine, was then
powdered with gold dust, so that he strode among his people a
majestic golden statue. Adventurers started in search of this El Dorado,
some from Peru, others from Quito and from Trinidad; but the golden
city was never found. They, however, brought back reports of chiefs
whose bodies sparkled with gold dust as they danced, who had golden
eagles dangling from their breasts and great pearls from their ears;
they told of mines of diamonds and gold, and of the natives who
longed to exchange their jewels for jews-harps.

Sir Walter Raleigh determined to find this country and bring to his
queen its fabulous riches, for he believed that the silver and gold mines
of Mexico and Peru had made Spain the first state in Christendom
—"that purchaseth intelligence and creepeth into counsels and
endangereth and disturbeth all the nations of Europe."

In 1595, Sir Walter sailed from England and arrived at the Isle of
Trinidad, where he overthrew the Spaniards, then sailed up the
Orinoco, or one of its branches, four hundred miles, until hunger and
sickness compelled him to return. Although he did not reach the
golden city, he could see the mountains far in the distance which he
believed surrounded it, and he found the shining sand on the banks of
the Orinoco. In Guiana he raised the flag of England and compelled the
Indians to swear fealty to his queen.

Twenty years later, a prisoner in the Tower, he was released in order to

make a second voyage in search of this El Dorado for King James. He
sailed in 1617, accompanied by his eldest son; but disaster and
sickness met him at every step. He reached the Orinoco again, too
feeble to land. So his son and Captain Keymis went instead. Keymis
returned after a month of exploration, bringing Raleigh the news of the
death of his son in an attack on a Spanish town. He brought reports of
the golden city, of the mines of gold, diamonds and emeralds, but
neither gold, diamonds nor emeralds to confirm the truth of these
reports. Raleigh said, "I am undone;" Keymis replied, "I know then, Sir,
what course to take." He went to his cabin and killed himself.

Raleigh returned to England, a broken down old man. The Spaniards

demanded his life of James as they had demanded it of Elizabeth after
his first expedition, on the ground that in time of peace Raleigh had
attacked the Spanish forces and invaded their country. Elizabeth had
refused, but James yielded. Raleigh was executed, but Guiana became
an English colony.

The gold and silver mines of Peru have failed; little gold has been
found in Guiana, but its rich and fertile soil, watered by tropical rains,
has been a source of greater wealth than the gold mines of Peru.

POPULATION OF SOUTH AMERICA.

As the countries of South America were all settled at about the same
time and by the same race and have passed through a like history,
they can be considered as a whole.

The United States and Canada, with a rough, uncongenial climate and
sterile soil, were settled by the Anglo-Saxons, the remainder of the
western continent by the Latin race and, excepting Brazil and Guiana,
by Spaniards. In North America the Anglo-Saxon race has dominated,
carrying civilization from the Atlantic to the Pacific, expelling and
exterminating the aborigines. There has been no mingling of the
Anglo-Saxon and Indian races, no backward step, but ever civil,
religious and intellectual progress. The Latin race conquered Central
America and South America, a perfect Eden of natural loveliness, one
hundred years prior to the settlement of the Anglo-Saxon; yet to-day
they constitute but a thin layer over a scarcely populated country. Their
leaders were men of unbounded ambition, rapacious, of great
endurance, but cruel and unscrupulous. They sought adventure,
expecting it would bring them gold and silver. For that end they
plundered, despoiled and enslaved the Indians. Gold and silver flowed
into their hands; luxury, effeminacy, and weakness followed.

The Spaniards in America have scarcely retained the civilization they

brought from the old world. They have intermarried with the Indians,
and this mixed race is said to inherit the vices of each of their
ancestors without the virtues of either.

A sparse population, mostly Spanish and foreigners, inhabit a zone ten

to twenty miles in depth along the coast of South America, from the
Bay of Panama to the Caribbean sea. All the cities and settlements,
excepting a few in the Argentine Republic, are near the coast.

Back of this zone, on the Pacific, is a mixed Spanish-Indian population,

much larger than the Spanish and foreign population; and on the
Atlantic a population which is Spanish-Indian, Spanish-Negro, and
Negro-Indian, occupies a zone from twenty to one hundred miles wide.
Beyond the first zone a few Spanish families and foreigners are found
at the gold and silver mines, on the pampas, at the cattle ranches, and
on a few haciendas in Peru and Chili. In Brazil the Portuguese and
some Englishmen and Germans raise coffee and sugar, and oversee the
diamond and gold fields. On the Amazon there are a few small
settlements to collect the India rubber and cacao of that valley.

Save these sparse settlements, the interior of South America is

inhabited by wild tribes of Indians, uncivilized save for the presence of
a few Catholic priests, who have given the Indians the cross and the
image of the Virgin Mary, which they worship, mingling the Catholic
religion with their old idolatries and barbarous rites. The natives are
believed to be more idle and less civilized than when the Spaniards
discovered America.

The Spaniards are the grandees of the country; too proud to work,
they leave all business to the foreigners and all labor to the Indians,
retaining in connection with the half-breeds all political power. When
the regents appointed by Spain were expelled in the early part of the
present century, republics were established, but they were republics
only in name; the people were neither educated nor fitted for self-
government. Their presidents generally exercised the powers of
dictators and often assumed that title. They have rarely enjoyed a long
rule, for their power and position were sought by others. Revolution in
these countries has passed from the acute to the chronic stage.

A recent traveller in Peru, who wished to inspect its railroad system,

was informed that only 26 miles were in running order, the remainder
being under the control of the revolutionists who were then less than
80 miles from the capital. He asked why the rebels did not take Lima,
the capital, and was told, "because there is no unanimity among them;
they are suspicious of each other, and cannot depend upon any one
man." Instead of being anxious to serve their country they are only
interested in robbing her.

Another traveller in Bolivia, who witnessed some of these revolutions,

says they sometimes occurred three times in as many weeks, and that
it would have been ludicrous had not their results been often violent
and tragic. There has been no settled government, no continued
peace, no permanent policy, in any Spanish country. The hope for the
future is that the English, German, and French population will increase
and become permanently identified with the country; they will then
take an active interest in politics and direct the policy and
administration of the government.

Commercial and banking business is in the hands of the French,

Germans, and English. The Italians carry on a small trade at corner
groceries and fruit stores; the French keep the hotels and restaurants;
the English and Germans are the shippers, merchants and bankers.

Regular lines of English, French, and German steamers run from

Europe to Panama and thence along the western coast of South
America, stopping at ports en route; some return by Panama, others
sail around Cape Horn to Europe by Buenos Ayres and Rio Janeiro.
Other lines run direct from Europe to Brazil, and twenty-four lines
connect Europe and the Argentine Republic; while there are only four
lines of American steamers trading to South America.

BRAZIL.

We have given a general description of South America, but three

countries—Brazil, the Argentine Republic and Peru—require further
notice: Brazil, because it is the largest country, occupying three-
sevenths of South America, and the only considerable state that was
not settled by the Spaniards; the Argentine Republic, because it is the
largest and most populous of the Spanish states and, with Peru,
illustrates the political and financial phases through which the Spanish
republics have passed.

The valley of the Amazon makes Brazil the most fertile region of the
world. The tropical woods are so thick and the creepers and
undergrowth so luxuriant that animal life is almost entirely confined to
the trees above and the waters below.

The valley is not unhealthy, and, though under the equator, the climate
is tempered by the trade winds and the evaporation from the vast
Amazonian waters. Beyond the valley is the montaña district, where
the land is higher and the climate semi-tropical, where there are few
creepers, little underbrush, and open forests, and where both animal
and vegetable life is less abundant. Southward, beyond the montaña
district, are the evergreen pampas, where no trees grow and where
the animal and vegetable life are unlike either that of the valley of the
Amazon or that of the montaña. As in Africa, so here, men who live in
the dark forest, die in the open. Mr. Stanley selected thirty dwarfs from
the tropical forests of Africa to take to England, but as soon as they
came into the grass-lands, the clear air and bright sun, they languished
and died before the coast was reached.

Northeast of the pampas, on the Atlantic coast, south of the Amazon,

is a province bounded on the south by a range of high mountains,
where rain is abundant; at Maranhao, its seaport, there are 280 inches
of rainfall in the year. South of Maranhao there is much less rain; and
instead of two seasons, the wet and the dry, which prevail in the valley
of the Amazon, there are the four seasons of the year, but without
extremes of heat and cold.

Over the greater part of Brazil grows the coffee tree, the sheet-anchor
of Brazilian prosperity, since it furnishes 60 per cent. of all the coffee
grown in the world. The plant is not indigenous to Brazil, but was
brought there about one hundred years ago from the old world.

Brazil, inhabited by the Portuguese, with an imperial government, has

been saved from the anarchy and insolvency of the Spanish republics.
Her railroads have been built with economy and have been generally
successful. It had a population in 1885 of 11,000,000; two-thirds of
whom were Indians and negroes, and many of the negroes were
slaves. Slavery existed longer in Brazil than in any other civilized
country; the lash was commonly used on the plantation, and work
continued from early in the morning until late at night until 1888, when
a law was passed finally emancipating 1,300,000 slaves. It was
opposed by the planters, who said freedmen would not work, but
would let the coffee and sugar plantations fall to ruin. It was probably
this act which caused the overthrow of the empire, for in revenge the
planters joined the insurgents in establishing the Republic.

The Portuguese and Brazilians are more peaceable and orderly than
the Spaniards or Spanish-Americans; we may therefore reasonably
hope that Brazil will not repeat the history of the Spanish republics,
which has been one of disintegration, for these republics have
separated into two or more States. The greatest difficulty in
maintaining its immense domain will arise from the enormous
distances and the time required to travel between different parts of the
country. From Rio de Janeiro to Matto Grosso is 140 days' journey by
land, and by water the distance is 3000 miles. Communication is
maintained by steamer through the Argentine Republic up the Rio de la
Plata and its branches. Although the country has many long and
navigable rivers, yet the means of intercommunication are very poor;
for the rivers are little used, and the forests, creepers, and
undergrowth are so dense that the country back of the river-banks is
impenetrable, and even if roads should be opened the soil is so
luxuriant that they would be quickly overgrown and soon become
impassable.

Lines of steamers have been subsidized by the Brazilian government

and run up the Amazon 2000 miles to Tabatinga, at the boundary line
of Peru; there connecting with lines subsidized by the Peruvian
government, which run 1500 miles farther up the river. These vessels
carry supplies to the settlers and bring back India rubber, Brazil-nuts,
cacao, quinine, and the beautiful woods of the forest.

Yet steamers are rarely seen on the Amazon; they have few
passengers, and have not opened the country; we are told that the
Mississippi carries more vessels in a month, and the Yang-tse-kiang in
a day, than the Amazon in a year.

THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC.

The history of South American republics is illustrated in the Argentine

republic.

It is a vast pampas or prairie, extending from Brazil to the Andes, and

from Bolivia with a southeasterly trend 2000 miles to southeastern
Terra del Fuego.

The climate of the northern portion is tropical; of the central part,

semi-tropical; of the extreme south, temperate or cold. The country is
generally well watered excepting in the northwestern part, where the
land is dry and alkaline, like the arid regions of North America. The soil
is a rich, deep loam, from four to six feet in depth, excepting in
Patagonia and the western pampas, where there is a coarse gravel and
detritus from the Andes. Instead of the dense tropical forest of the
Amazon valley, the pampas are covered by a coarse grass, three or
four feet high, growing in large tussocks and all the year round of a
dark green. The strong grass crowds out all trees and almost all plants,
so that scarcely a flower relieves the uniform, everlasting verdure.

Instead of the arboreal animals of the Amazon there is the rhea or

American ostrich, "ship of the wilderness," adapted to the pampas, but
unable to live in the forests. The gauchos have hunted it for the last
three centuries, but it is now passing away and will soon be lost to the
pampas, as the buffalo has been to the North American prairie.

The pampas are far better adapted to the raising of cattle than our
prairies, for the grass is always green and the winters are milder.
Cattle, horses, and sheep imported by the Spaniards and turned on to
the pampas rapidly increased, and now immense herds feed on the
plains.

The Indians who inhabit the pampas, instead of being confined to one
locality and journeying only by canoe, like the Indians on the Amazon,
wander over the length and breadth of the pampas, hunting the ostrich
and cattle. The cattle are tended by gauchos, as the cow-boys are
called, half-breeds as wild as the herds they tend. Constant warfare
exists between the Indians and the gauchos, unless they unite to
attack the settlers. After one of the Indian raids the government dug
an immense ditch from a river to the Andes and drove the Indians to
the farther side, and since then there have been fewer raids—and
fewer Indians.

The land was held in large blocks of many thousand acres, worked by
overseers and gauchos. The animals were killed by hundreds of
thousands for their skins. This state of things is, however, gradually
passing away, for during the last twenty years emigrants from the old
world have settled in the country as farmers and planters.