504 RETROSPECT. [chap. xxi. 



limit to their duration through future time. 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 beautiful, are very memorable. 

 AYhen looking down from the highest crest of the Cordillera, 

 the mind, undisturbed by minute details, was filled with the stu- 

 pendous dimensions of the surrounding masses. 



Of individual objects, perhaps nothing is more certain to create 

 astonishment than the first sight in his native haunt of a barba- 

 rian, — of man in his lowest and most savage state. One's mind 

 hurries back over past centuries, and then asks, could our pro- 

 genitors have been men like these ? — men, whose very signs and 

 expressions are less intelligible to us than those of the domesti- 

 cated animals ; men, w ho 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 believe it is possible 

 to describe or paint the difference between savage and civilized 

 man. It is the difference between a w'ild 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 w^e have 

 beheld, may be ranked the Southern Cross, the cloud of Magellan, 

 and the other constellations of the southern hemisphere — the 

 water-spout — the glacier leading its blue stream of ice, over- 

 hanging the sea in a bold precipice — a lagoon-island raised by 

 the reef-building- corals — an active volcano — and the overwhelm- 

 ing effects of a violent earthquake. These latter phenomena, 

 perhaps, possess for me a peculiar interest, from their intimate 

 connexion with the geological structure of the w^orld. The 

 earthquake, how^ever, 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 over- 

 thrown, we feel the insignificance of his boasted power. 



