282 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



with it, the red trumpet-like blossoms of the Bignonia 

 grandiflora "are suspended from the flower-stalks in clus- 

 ters two or three feet in length." We will take such a 

 scene away with us, to muse over in fancy on the long, 

 long voyage of some nine thousand miles across the Pacific 

 Ocean, which must be endured ere we shall hail the first 

 sight of the Andes, on the coast of Peru. 



Perhaps no earthly sight is so overpowering to the mind 

 as a lofty range of mountains. The region to which our 

 eyes and thoughts are raised whilst we contemplate them, 

 is so far above the turmoil of this lower world, that quiet- 

 ness and awe and reverence raise us, for the time, to a 

 better and more peaceful state of existence; even when 

 partly shrouded from the sight in clouds, they read their 

 own peculiar lesson to those who understand their language. 

 No one, without seeing the Andes, can form any worthy 

 notion of them ; and as our imaginary voyage draws to a 

 close, fancy is baffled whilst we try to make some picture 

 to ourselves of their first shadowy outline as we near them 

 from the sea. But though we can form no adequate notion 

 of them as a whole, we may yet get some idea of them, bit 

 by bit, from the descriptions which Meyen and other tra- 

 vellers on the Andes have given of different parts of them. 



