1836.] RETROSPECT. 503 



should be a botanist, for in all views plants form the chief embel- 

 lishment. 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 co- 

 lours, as in Northern Chile, they will become fantastic ; clothe 

 them with vegetation, they must form a decent, if not a beautiful 

 picture. 



When I say that the scenery of parts of Europe is probably supe- 

 rior to anything which we beheld, I except, as a class by itself, 

 that of the intertropical zones. The two classes cannot be com- 

 pared together ; but I have already often enlarged on the grandeur 

 of those regions. As the force of impressions generally depends 

 on preconceived ideas, I may add, that mine were taken from the 

 vivid descriptions in the Personal Narrative of Humboldt, which 

 far exceed in merit anything else which I have read. Yet with 

 these high- wrought ideas, my feelings were far from partaking of 

 a tinge of disappointment on my first and final 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 filled with the varied produc- 

 tions 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 that 

 the plain? of Patagonia frequently cross before my eyes ; yet 

 these plains are pronounced by all wretched and useless. They 

 can be described only by negative characters ; without habita- 

 tions, without water, without trees, without mountains, they sup- 

 port merely a few dwarf plants. Why then, and the case is not 

 peculiar to myself, have these arid wastes taken so firm a hold on 

 ray memory ? Why have not the still more level, the greener 

 and more fertile Pampas, which are serviceable to mankind, pro- 

 duced an equal impression ? I can scarcely analyze these feel- 

 ings : but it must be partly owing to the free scope given to the 

 imagination. The plains of Patagonia are boundless, for they 

 are scarcely passable, and hence unknown : they bear the stamp 

 of having lasted, as they are now, for ages, and there appears no 



