THE AMAZON VALLEY. 309 



attracts his attention. The structure of some are unknown, 

 and he is pleased to examine them. The locality of another 

 is doubtful, and he feels a great pleasure in determining it. 

 He is ever examining individual objects, and confounds his 

 own interest in them, from a variety of causes, with the 

 sensations produced by their beauty, and thus is led to give 

 exaggerated descriptions of the luxuriance and splendour of 

 the vegetation. 



As most travellers are naturalists, this supposition will 

 account for the ideas of the tropics generally obtained from 

 a perusal of their works. 



If I have come to a different conclusion, it is not that I am 

 incapable of appreciating the splendours of tropical scenery, 

 but because I believe that they are not of the kind usually 

 represented, and that the scenery of our own land is, of its 

 own kind, unsurpassed : there is nothing approaching it in the 

 tropics, nor is the scenery of the tropics to be found with us. 

 There, singular forms of stems and climbers, gigantic leaves, 

 elegant palms, and individual plants with brilliant flowers, are 

 the characteristic features. Here, an endless carpet of 

 verdure, with masses of gay blossoms, the varying hues of the 

 foliage, and the constant variety of plain and forest, meadow 

 and woodland, more than individual objects, are what fill the 

 beholder with delight 



