decidedly been the most constant and highest source of
enjoyment. It is probable that the picturesque beauty of
many parts of Europe exceeds any thing we liave beheld.
But there is a growing pleasure in comparing the character
of scenery iu different countries, which to a certain degree is
distinct from merely admiring its beauty. It depends more
on an acquaintance with the individual parts of each view.
I am strongly induced to believe that, as in music, the
person who understands every note will, if he also possesses
a proper taste, more thoroughly enjoy the whole,
so he who examines each part of a fine view, may also
thoroughly comprehend the full and combined eftect.
Hence, a traveller should be a botanist, for in all views
plants form the chief embellishment. Group masses of
naked rock even in the wildest forms, and they may for
a time afford a sublime spectacle, but they will soon grow
monotonous. Paint them with bright and varied colours,
they will become fantastic; clothe them with vegetation,
they must form at least a decent, if not a most beautiful
picture.
When I said that the scenery of Europe was probably
superior to any thing which we have beheld, I excepted,
as a class by itself, that of the intertropical regions. The
two classes cannot be compared together; but I have
already often enlarged on the grandeur of these climates.
As the force of impressions generally depends on preconceived
ideas, I may add, that all mine were taken from the
livid descriptions in the Personal Narrative of Humboldt,
which far exceed in merit any thing I have read on the
subject. Yet with these high-wrought ideas, my feelings
were far from partaking of any tinge of disappointment
on first landing on the shores of Brazil.
Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my
mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced
by the hand of man; whether those of Brazil, where
the powers of Life are predominant, or those of Tierra del
Fuego, where Death and Decay prevail. Both are temples
lift
filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature no
one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that
there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. In
calling up images of the past, I find the plains of Patagonia
frequently cross before my e y e s: yet these plains are pronounced
by all most wretched and useless. They are
characterized only by negative possessions; without habitations,
without water, without trees, without mountains,
they support merely a few dwarf plants. Why then, and
the case is not peculiar to myself, have these arid wastes
taken so firm possession of the memory ? Why have not
the still more level, the greener and more fertile Pampas,
which are serviceable to mankind, produced an equal
impression ? I can scarcely analyze these feelings; but it
must be partly owing to the free scope given to the
imagination. The plains of Patagonia are boundless, for
they are scarcely practicable, and hence unknown: they
bear the stamp of having thus lasted for ages, and there
appears no limit to their duration through future time. If,
as the ancients supposed, the flat earth was surrounded
by an impassable breadth of water, or by deserts heated
to an intolerable excess, who would not look at these last
boundaries to man’s knowledge with deep but ill-defined
sensations ?
Lastly, of natural scenery, the views from lofty mountains,
though certainly in one sense not beautiful, are very memorable.
When looking down from the crest of the highest
Cordillera, the mind undisturbed by minute details, was filled
with the stupendous dimensions of the surrounding masses.
Of individual objects, perhaps no one is more certain to
create astonishment than the first sight in his native haunt of
a real barbarian,—of man in his lowest and most savage
state. One’s mind hurries back over past centuries, and then
asks, could our progenitors have been such as these ? Men,
whose very signs and expressions are less intelligible to us
than those of the domesticated animals; men, who do not
possess the instinct of those animals, nor yet appear to boast of