ELISHA KENT KANE. 137 



to produce the unusual achievements which he per- 

 formed. 



In reference to Dr. Kane's moral qualities, it 

 may with truth be said that he was a devout man. 

 In every country his thoughts uniformly ascended 

 reverently from nature to nature's God. If, amid 

 the awful silence of an Arctic night, when not the 

 slightest sound broke the appalling stillness of the 

 scene, he gazed abroad from the deck of his vessel 

 upon the boundless waste of frozen seas, mountains, 

 and headlands which stretched away for hundreds 

 of miles around him and separated him from that 

 distant world of life, joy, and sympathy which he 

 might never see again ; then he looked upward into 

 the solemn depths of the blue concave above him, 

 and appreciating both the loneliness of his position 

 and the watchfulness of the common Benefactor of 

 all, exclaimed, " Lord, what is man, that thou art 

 mindful of him?" If, from the heights of Popo- 

 catepetl he surveyed the extended and diversified 

 realms where, in former ages, Mexican arts, civiliza- 

 tion, and power flourished and covered the earth 

 with gorgeous cities, stately palaces, luxuriant vege- 

 tation, and all the pleasing or impressive monuments 

 of a great and cultivated nation ; if he contemplated 

 from his lofty perch the memorable process of con- 

 flict, defeat, and subjugation which marked the era 



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