26 NOTES OF A NATURALIST. 



the most vividly impressed on my memory was a 

 rough illustration in a child's book, given to me on 

 my seventh birthday, representing Vasco Nunez, as, 

 from the summit of the ridge of Darien, he, first of 

 all western men, cast his wondering eyes over the 

 boundless, till then unsuspected, ocean. He has 

 climbed the steep shattered rocks, and, as he gains 

 the crest of the ridge, has grasped a projecting frag- 

 ment to steady himself on the edge of the dizzy 

 declivity. Even now, after looking on the gently 

 swelling hills, so completely forest-covered that with- 

 out extensive clearing a distant view would be impos- 

 sible, I find it hard to believe that that picture does 

 not represent some portion of my actual past 

 experience. 



I do not know whether, in connection with the 

 vivid recollection either of actual scenes or illustra- 

 tions dating from early life, attention has been 

 sufficiently called to the curious tricks which the 

 brain not seldom performs in discharging its function 

 of keeper of the records. In my experience it is 

 common to find, on revisiting after many years a spot 

 of which one believes one's self to have a vivid and 

 accurate recollection, that the mental picture has 

 undergone some curious changes. The materials of 

 the scene are, so to say, all present, but their arrange- 

 ment has been unaccountably altered. The torrent, 

 the bridge, the house, the tree, the peak in the back- 

 ground, are all there, but they are not in their right 

 places. The house has somehow got to the wrong 

 side of the torrent, or the peak rises on the right of 

 the tree instead of the left. A picture vividly retained 



