RETROSPECT. 309 



known : they bear the stamp of having lasted, as 

 they are now, for ages, and there appears no limit 

 to their duration through future tiine. If, as the 

 ancients supposed, the flat earth was surrounded 

 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-defined sensations "? 



Lastly, of natural scenery, the views from lofty 

 mountains, though certainly in one sense not beau- 

 tiful, are very memorable. When looking down 

 from the highest crest of the Cordillera, the mind, 

 undisturbed by minute details, was filled with the 

 stupendous dimensions of the suiTOunding masses. 



Of individual objects, perhaps nothing is more 

 certain to create astonishment than the first sight 

 in his native haunt of a barbarian — of man in his 

 lowest and most savage state. One's mind hurries 

 back over past centuries, and then asks, could our 

 progenitors have been men like these 1 men, whose 

 very signs and expressions are less intelligible to 

 us than those of the domesticated animals ; men 

 who do not possess the instinct of those animals, 

 nor yet appear to boast of human reason, or at least 

 of arts consequent on that reason. I do not be- 

 lieve it is possible to describe or paint the differ- 

 ence between savage and civilized man. It is the 

 difference between a wild and tame animal ; and 

 part of the interest in beholding a savage is the 

 same which would lead every one to desire to see 

 the lion in his desert, the tiger tearing his prey in 

 the jungle, or the rhinoceros wandering over the 

 wild plains of Africa. 



Among the other most remarkable spectacles 

 which we have beheld, may be ranked the South- 

 ern Cross, the cloud of Magellan, and the other 

 constellations of the southern hemisphere — the wa- 



