of Lord North’s Island. 207 
as it has been justly entitled to from its intrinsic importance and 
character. Indeed, until the above-cited work of M. de Rienzi, 
who was himself a voyager throughout that part of the globe for 
twenty-one years of his life, we had, as he himself remarks, “no 
particular and complete book” on this fifth division of the earth, 
though it is, as he justly observes, the most curious and most 
diversified region of the globe. “It is,” says he, “the land of 
prodigies; it contains races of men of the most opposite charac- 
ters, the most extraordinary wonders of nature, and the most 
admirable monuments of art. We there see the pigmy by the 
side of the giant, and the white man by the side of the black; 
a cannibal people in the neighbourhood of a patriarchal tribe; and, 
at a small distance from the most brutal savages, nations that 
were civilized before we were; while earthquakes and aérolites 
desolate the fields of the country, and volcanoes overwhelm whole 
towns. Upon its southern continent, New Holland, the most 
whimsically formed animals, and on its largest island, Borneo, the 
orang-outan, that two-handed image of man, present to the phi- 
losophic inquirer a subject for profound contemplation; and while 
one of its islands prides itself on the majesty of its temples and its 
ancient palaces, — superior to the monuments of Persia and Mexico, 
and worthy to be compared with the chef-d’ceuvres of India and 
Egypt, — others display their pagodas, their mosques, and their 
modern tombs, which rival, in elegance and grace, every thing 
that the East and China may offer us, even the most perfect of 
the kind.” 
If, now, we take our departure from Lima, on the American 
coast, and proceed westerly across the Pacific Ocean,—as the 
same writer continues, in glowing, but highly colored language, — 
“nothing meets the wandering eye but the ocean and the heavy- 
