1828.] Meditations on Mountains. 579 



Garden. Fine as it is, however, you owe it all to the mountain, that 

 collects the drops of a thousand showers, and the dews of every even 

 and morn lodges them in its hidden stores, and deals them out in 

 living fountains, which the heat of the summer cannot reach and pours 

 all their rills and runnels into this stream, which, swoln in volume and 

 increased in rapidity by the excess of water which the hoary giant shakes 

 from his sides during a rain-flood, has tugged and torn away the softer 

 rocks, formed the ravine by which you have ascended to this spot, and 

 is now grinding away the ancient granite the " thewes and sinews" of 

 the globe by the attrition of sand ; just as a lapidary cuts a gem upon 

 his wheel. Yes, you owe it all to the mountain ; for did it not attract the 

 cloud, ply its subterranean pumps by the alternations of atmospheric 

 pressure, and aiford the collected water a slope down which to roll, the 

 scene would be different indeed. 



Look at the countries, of considerable extent, in which there are no 

 mountains ; and, be their position on the globe what it may under the 

 burning line, or near the freezing pole you find none of the charms that 

 delight you here. Is it in the great central plains of Africa and Asia ? 

 There is not a river no, not even a drop of rain. Salt, sand, and sulphur 

 these are the elements of the cloud ; and, when the whirlwind plays its 

 eddies, you have no fertilizing shower, and no " clear-shining after rain/' 

 with the opal-tinted drops upon the green leaves. The mass of dry and 

 burning sand rises up, and reels towards you, thundering and lightening, 

 and armed with more deadly power than a modern host with all its artil- 

 lery ; or, if you escape that, the burning wind steals upon you you 

 pant and die, and the next moment your limbs may be severed by a 

 touch. In the wide flats of South America, you fare not quite so ill; but 

 then the country is a desert for more than a million of square miles ; and 

 it is so, because there are no mountains. The flat part of North America, 

 between the Canadian lakes and the Stony mountains, is foul and fenny ; 

 and the flats which skirt the Arctic Sea, in Siberia and the government of 

 Archangel what are they ? Nee tellus sunt, nee mare Ice and mud, 

 so blended together, that you are unable to say which is earth and which 

 is water. Compare the aromatic dells of Yemen, and the delightful 

 slopes of the Libanus, with the flat deserts of Sahara and Irac; or the 

 glorious bloom of the Brazilian hills, with the howling wilderness which 

 stretches westward to the Andes ; and you will see that the mountains 

 are the prime ministers to every thing that grows or lives the grand 

 Aquarii, that bring drink to the whole children of nature ; and wherever 

 they bring it not, these die, and death lords it over the dust, and pollutes 

 the air not only pollutes it there, but sends thence a pestilence which 

 invades other lands. Because there are no cloud-collecting mountains in 

 Barca, the sirocco invades the shores of Sicily and Naples ; and because 

 Atlas rears his snowy barrier between, the same wind of destruction 

 passes not over Murcia and Grenada. 



The mountain before you is your book, and this is one of its lessons, as 

 you have wearied yourself with the waterfall, and are looking for some 

 path by which you can scramble out of the ravine, and again catch a sight 

 of the parent, with the ways and workings of whose child you have been 

 so delighted. The rocks by the cascade you need not attempt they are 

 lofty, overhanging, and slippery ; and one false step would launch you 

 into that boiling deep, which, though grand to look at, is not exactly the 

 place which you would choose for a bath. So you must retrace your 



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