MODERN TRAVELLERS. 69 



awful solitudes of the Polar regions, where the surrounding 

 desolation and the lonely situation of the mariners, cut off 

 from all human aid, isolate the picture, and cause it to act 

 more stirringly on the imagination of the reader. If the 

 above considerations render it undeniably evident that in 

 modern books of travels the active element necessarily falls 

 into the background, affording for the most part merely a 

 connecting thread whereby the successive observations of 

 nature or of manners are linked together, yet ample com- 

 pensation may be derived from the treasures of observation, 

 from grand views of the universe, and from the laudable 

 endeavour in each writer to avail himself of the peculiar ad- 

 vantages which his native language may possess for clear 

 and animated description. The benefits for which we are 

 indebted to modern cultivation are the constantly advancing 

 enlargement of our field of view, the increasing wealth in 

 ideas and feelings, and their active mutual influence. With- 

 out leaving our native soil, we may now not only be informed 

 what is the character and form of the earth's crust in the 

 most distant zones, and what are the plants and animals 

 which enliven its surface, but we may also expect to be pre- 

 sented with such pictures as may produce in ourselves a 

 vivid participation in a portion at least of those impressions 

 which in each zone man receives from external nature. To 

 satisfy these demands, this requirement of a species of in- 

 tellectual delight unknown to the ancient world, is one of 

 the efforts of modern times ; the effort prospers, and the work 

 advances, both because it is the common work of all culti- 

 vated nations, and because the increasing improvement of 

 the means of transport, both by sea and land, renders the 



