THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 41 



accidental manner. Perhaps a canoe from the Malayan shoies 

 drifted upon the Fiji Islands, and its rowers became the progeni- 

 tors of the black cannibals ; or a junk from China or Japan was 

 cast away upon Tahiti or Hawaii. These wanderers, cut off 

 from intercourse with the rest of the world, developed their 

 barbarism or semi-civilization in their own way, under the influ- 

 ence of altered conditions, climate and productions. The story 

 of the " Bounty,'' and the first settlement of Pitcairn's Island, 

 too well known to require more than a passing allusion, shows 

 that such a canoe or junk voyage is altogether possible, and how 

 widely in the course of a single generation a group of isolated 

 individuals deviate from their original stock. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE GREAT PLATEAU AND ITS WONDERS. 



WITHIN the geographical limits of the tropical world is found 

 every variety of climate upon the globe. There are great moun- 

 tain ranges which, even at the equator, rise above the limits of 

 perpetual snow. Their summits, untrodden by man, and un vis- 

 ited by any other form of animal life, must be more desolate 

 than the most extreme polar regions to which explorers have 

 been unable to penetrate. Of living creatures the strong-winged 

 condor alone has reached so high. Upon these dreary crags this 

 great bird is king of all ; here it rears its brood unmolested, and 

 from its eyrie surveys the valleys below and swoops down, with 

 rushing wings, upon defenseless flocks, and bears away in its 

 cruel talons the young of the various folds. Keen of vision, 

 and no less wary, it has no enemies to fight, and thus lords its 

 way in the world, multiplies and annually becomes more destruc- 

 tive in its ravages. Nature has provided this wonderful bird 

 with a power which is given to no other bird or animal, that of 

 sustaining life at such great altitudes. 



The most remarkable, as well as one of the most lofty plateaus 



