170 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 



or less in harmony with the requirements of our feelings. For it is 

 the inward mirror of the sensitive mind which reflects the true and 

 living image of the natural world. All that determines the cha- 

 racter of a landscape the outline of the mountains, which, in the 

 far-vanishing distance, bound the horizon the dark shade of the 

 pine forests the sylvan torrent rushing between overhanging cliifs 

 to its fall all are in antecedent, mysterious communion with the 

 inner feelings and life of man. 



On this communion rests the nobler portion of the enjoyment 

 which nature affords. Nowhere does she penetrate us more deeply 

 with the feeling of her grandeur, nowhere does she speak to us with 

 a more powerful voice, than in the tropical world, under the "Indian 

 sky/' as, in the early middle ages, the climate of the torrid zone was 

 called. If, therefore, I venture again to occupy this assembly with 

 a description of those regions, I do so in the hope that the peculiar 

 charm which belongs to them will not be unfelt. The remembrance 

 of a distant, richly endowed land the aspect of a free and vigorous 

 vegetation refreshes and strengthens the mind ; in the same man- 

 ner as our spirits, when oppressed with the actual present, love to 

 escape awhile, and to delight themselves with the earlier youthful 

 age of mankind, and with the manifestations of its simple grandeur. 



Favoring winds and currents bear the voyager westward across 

 the peaceful Ocean arm (*) which fills the wide valley between the 

 New Continent and Western Africa. Before the American shore 

 rises from the liquid plain, he hears the tumult of contending, 

 mutually opposing, and inter- crossing waves. The mariner unac- 

 quainted with the region would surmise the vicinity of shoals, or a 

 wonderful outbreak of fresh springs in the middle of the ocean, ( 3 ) 

 like those in the neighborhood of Cuba. On approaching nearer 

 to the granitic coast of Guiana, he becomes sensible that he has 

 entered the wide embouchure of a mighty river, which issues forth 

 like a shoreless lake, and covers the ocean around with fresh water. 

 The green, and, on the shallows, the milk-white, tint of the fresh 

 water contrasts with the indigo-blue color of the sea, and marks 

 with sharp outlines the limits of the river waves. 



The name Orinoco, given to the river by its first discoverers, and 

 which probably originated in some confusion of language, is un- 



