54 DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURAL SCENERY. 



unknown. If we once more cast our eyes on the period of 

 those great discoveries which prepared the way for the 

 modern tendency of which we have been speaking, we must 

 in so doing refer preeminently to those descriptions of 

 nature which have been left us by Columbus himself. It is 

 only recently that we have obtained the knowledge of his 

 own ship's journal, of Ids letters to the treasurer Sanchez, 

 to Donna Juana de la Torre governess of the Infant Don 

 Juan, and to Queen Isabella. In my critical examination of 

 the history of the geography of the 15th and 16th centu- 

 ries ( 83 ), I have sought to show with how deep a feeling and 

 perception of the forms and the beauty of nature the great 

 discoverer was endowed, and how he described the face of 

 the earth, and the " new heaven" which opened to his view, 

 (" viage nuevo al nuevo cielo i mundo que fasta entonces 

 estaba en occulto"), with a beauty and simplicity of ex- 

 pression which can only be fully appreciated by those who 

 are familiar with the ancient force of the language as it 

 existed at the period. 



The aspect and physiognomy of the vegetation; the 

 impenetrable thickets of the forests, "iii wliich one can 

 hardly distinguish which are the flowers and leaves belonging 

 to eacii stem;" the wild luxuriance which clothed the humid 

 shores ; the rose-coloured flamingoes fishing at the mouth 

 of the rivers in the early morning, and giving animation to the 

 landscape ; attract the attention of the old navigator while 

 sailing along the coast of Cuba, between the small Lucayan ! 

 islands and the Jardinillos, which I also have visited. Each 

 newly discovered laud appears to him still more beautiful than 

 those he had before described; he complains that he cannot find 

 ^ : ords in which to record the sweet impressions winch he has 



