1836.] RETROSPECT. 483 



they bear the stamp of having lasted, as they are now, for ages, and 

 there appears uo 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. 

 When looking down from the highest crest of the Cordillera, the 

 mind, undisturbed by minute details, was filled with the stupendous 

 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 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 ? 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 believe it is possible to describe or paint the difference 

 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 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-hang- 

 ing 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 structure 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 insignificance of his 

 boasted power. 



It has been said, that the love of the chase is an inherent delight 



