ABSTRACT
The routes to Latin America were not among those most frequented by wandering Scotsmen during the nineteenth century. They showed greater interest in other areas that either were, or had been, parts of the British Empire. Indeed the fact that Latin America had been a part of the Spanish and Portuguese empires for more than 300 years prior to the nineteenth century was the main obstacle to the formation of a nucleus of British settlements that could be built upon later, when the industrial revolution in Britain demanded an integration of markets on a world-wide scale. The hostility of the Latin American environment therefore was not simply a question of wild jungles, rivers, swamps, yellow fever or small pox. There was also the problem of cultural differences that were inimical to prospective Protestant and English speaking settlers.
