et INTRODUCTION 25 
without water, without trees, without moun- 
tains, they support only a few dwarf plants. 
Why then—and the case is not peculiar to 
myself — have these arid wastes taken so firm 
possession of my mind? Why have not the 
still more level, the greener and more fertile 
pampas, which are serviceable to mankind, 
produced an equal impression? I can scarcely 
analyse these feelings, but it must be partly 
owing to the free scope given to the imagina- 
tion. The plains of Patagonia are boundless, 
for they are scarcely practicable, and hence 
unknown ; they bear the stamp of having thus 
lasted for ages, and there appears no limit to 
their duration through future time. If, as 
the ancients supposed, the flat earth was sur- 
~ rounded by an impassable breadth of water, 
or by deserts heated to an intolerable excess, 
who would not look at these last boundaries 
to man’s knowledge with deep but ill-de- 
fined sensations ?”’ 
Hamerton, whose wide experience and 
artistic power make his opinion especially 
important, says: — 
“T know nothing in the visible world that 
