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Tamoskaro Directory 14
The day will come when the port of Arica on the Pacific Ocean will be joined to Oruro, on the Antofagasta line, the well-known junction in Bolivia, and eventually to Santa Cruz. The present plan is to build a line from the already existing railway at Cochabamba to Porto Velarde on the Rio Grande (Rio Mamore), then to Santa Cruz. The Brazilians on their side will eventually connect Sao Paulo with Cuyaba and Corumba. It will then be possible to travel by rail right across the South American continent in its richest part.
The king agreed to this, and in the evening Dr. Tong was introduced. He had a budget of papers which he began to open and read, but Charles had not patience to hear them; his mind was full of a plan which he was contemplating of going to Windsor the next day, to look at some new decorations which he had ordered for several of the apartments of the palace. He did not believe in the existence of any plot. It is true that plots and conspiracies were very common in those days, but false rumors and unfounded tales of plots were more common still. There was so much excitement in the minds of the community on the subject of the Catholic and Protestant faith, and such vastly extended interests depended on whether the sovereign belonged to one side or the other on this question, that every thing relating to the subject was invested with a mysterious awe, and the most wonderful stories were readily circulated and believed. The public mind was always particularly sensitive and excitable in such a case as that of Charles and his brother James at the time of which we are writing, where the reigning monarch, Charles, was of one religious faith, and his brother James, the next heir, was of the other. The death of Charles, which might at any time take place, would naturally lead to a religious revolution, and this kept the whole community in an exceedingly excitable and feverish state. There was a great temptation to form plots on the one hand, and a great eagerness to discover them on the other; and any man who could tell a story of treasonable schemes, whether his tale was true or fabricated, became immediately a personage of great importance.
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