310 UKTIIUSI'ECT. 



ter-spout — the glacier leading its blue stream of 

 ice, overhanging the sea in a bold precipice — a 

 lagoon-island raised by the reef-building corals — 

 an active volcano — and the overwhelming effects 

 of a violent earthquake. These latter phenomena, 

 perhaps, possess for me a peculiar interest, from 

 their intimate connexion with the geological struc- 

 ture of the world. The earthquake, however, 

 must be to every one a most impressive event : the 

 earth, considered from our earliest childhood as 

 the type of solidity, has oscillated like a thin crust 

 beneath our feet ; and in seeing the laboured works 

 of man in a moment overthrown, we feel the insig- 

 nificance of his boasted power. 



It has been said that the love of the chase is an 

 inherent delight in man — a relic of an instinctive 

 passion. If so, I am sure the pleasure of living 

 in the open air, with the sky for a roof and the 

 ground for a table, is part of the same feeling ; it 

 is the savage returning to his wild and native hab- 

 its, I always look back to our boat cruises, and 

 my land journeys, when through unfrequented 

 countries, with an extreme delight, which no 

 scenes of civilization could have created. I do 

 not doubt that every traveller must remember the 

 glowing sense of happiness which he experienced 

 when he first breathed in a foreign clime, where 

 the civilized man had seldom or never trod. 



There are several other sources of enjoyment in 

 a long voyage which are of a more reasonable na- 

 ture. The map of the world ceases to be a blank ; 

 it becomes a picture full of the most varied and an- 

 imated figures. Each part assumes its proper di- 

 mensions : continents are not looked at in the light 

 of islands, or islands considered as mere specks, 

 which are, in truth, larger than many kingdoms of 

 Europe. Africa, or North and South America, 



