An Etcher's Voyage of Discovery, 327 



clear heaven, till he set on the far horizon as he sets on 

 the summer sea, — there came upon the spirit of the voy- 

 ager such a sense of boundless space and free breathing 

 of balmy, illimitable air, as he never knew in the narrow 

 gorges where dark hills and dense woods overshadowed 

 him. 



Every scene of Nature has its own character, and its 

 own charm. The plains have not the sublimities of the 

 hills, nor the guarded seclusion of the shaded valleys, 

 and we miss the weird shapes of the gray rocks that 

 breast the stream where its flowing is strongest ; yet it 

 is glorious to see all the blue sky in the daytime, and all 

 the stars at night. And the river seems to gain a cer- 

 tain dignity too, with its assurance of perfect peace. It 

 has space for all its waters, and knows restraint no more. 

 The graceful trees only adorn its borders, but do not 

 arrest its course. If it winds in beautiful curves, it does 

 so from deliberate preferences. It would be easy, as it 

 seems, to go straight to its distant bourn, but to go indi- 

 rectly is yet a little easier ; so it turns for its own pleas 

 ure, and visits here a village, and there a solitary farm, 

 where the oxen stand knee-deep in the evening. 



The gradual growth of a river might be illustrated by 

 drawings of its bridges. First you have the trunk of a 

 single tree, rudely flattened on the upper side by strokes 

 of a peasant's axe, and supported by two rude abutments 

 of unhewn granite blocks. A little lower down the 

 stream has become too wide for the single trunk to 

 cross it ; so now you have two trees that meet on a rock 

 in the middle. After that you come to the first serious 



