INTRODUCTION. 21 



unknown to us ; and it is then, amid the colossal and majestic 

 forms of an exotic flora, that we feel how wonderfully the flex- 

 ibility of our nature fits us to receive new impressions, linked 

 together by a certain secret analogy. We so readily perceive 

 the affinity existing among all the forms of organic life, thaf 

 although the sight of a vegetation similar to that of our native 

 country might at first be most welcome to the eye, as the swee) 

 familiar sounds of our mother tongue are to the ear, we nev- 

 ertheless, by degrees, and almost imperceptibly, become famil 

 iarized with a new home and a new climate. As a true citi 

 zen of the world, man every where habituates himself to tha' 

 which surrounds him ; yet fearful, as it were, of breaking tl ^ 

 links of association that bind him to the home of his childhood, 

 the colonist applies to some few plants in a far-distant clime the 

 names he had been familiar with in his native land ; and by 

 the mysterious relations existing among all types of organiza- 

 tion, the forms of exotic vegetation present themselves to his 

 mind as nobler and more perfect developments of those he had 

 loved in earlier days. Thus do the spontaneous impressions 

 of the untutored mind lead, like the laborious deductions of 

 cultivated intellect, to the same intimate persuasion, that one 

 sole and indissoluble chain binds together all nature. 



It may seem a rash attempt to endeavor to separate, into 

 its different elements, the magic power exercised upon our 

 minds by the physical world, since the character of the land- 

 scape, and of every imposing scene in nature, depends so ma- 

 terially upon the mutual relation of the ideas and sentiments 

 simultaneously excited in the mind of the observer. 



The powerful effect exercised by nature springs, as it were, 

 from the connection and unity of the impressions and emo- 

 tions produced ; and we can only trace their different sources 

 by analyzing the individuality of objects and the diversity of 

 forces. 



The richest and most varied elements for pursuing an anal- 

 ysis of this nature present themselves to the eyes of the trav- 

 eler in the scenery of Southern Asia, in the Great Indian 

 Archipelago, and more especially, too, in the New Continent, 

 whero the summits of the lofty Cordilleras penetrate the con- 

 fines of the aerial ocean surrounding our globe, and where the 

 same subterranean forces that once raised these mountain 

 chains still shake them to their foundation and threaten their 

 downfall. 



Graphic delineations of nature, arranged according to sys- 

 tematic views, are not only suited to please the imagination. 



