CHARACTERISTIC REPRESENTATION OF TROPICAL SCENERYc 85 



course of great rivers, or to the summits of the mountain 

 chains of the interior. It is only by coloured sketches taken 

 on the spot, that the artist, inspired by the contemplation of 

 these distant scenes, can hope to reproduce their character 

 in paintings executed after his return. He will be able 

 to do so the more perfectly, if he has also accumulated 

 a large number of separate studies of tops of trees, of 

 branches clothed with leaves, adorned with blossoms, or laden 

 with fruit, of fallen trunks of trees overgrown with pothos 

 and orchidese, of portions of rocks and river banks, as well 

 as of the surface of the ground in the forest, all drawn or 

 painted directly from nature. An abundance of studies of 

 this kind, in which the outlines are well and sharply marked 

 will furnish him with materials enabling him, on his re- 

 turn, to dispense with the misleading assistance afforded by 

 plants grown in the confinement of hot-houses, or by what 

 are called botanical drawings. 



Great events in the world's history, the independence of 

 the Spanish and Portuguese Americas, and the spread and 

 increase of intellectual cultivation in India, New Holland, 

 the Sandwich Islands, and the southern colonies of Africa, 

 cannot fail to procure, not only for meteorology and other 

 branches of natural knowledge, but also for landscape paint- 

 ing, a new and grander development which might not have 

 been attainable without these local circumstances. In South 

 America populous cities are situated 13,000 feet above the 

 level of the sea. In descending from them to the plains, 

 all climatic gradations of the forms of plants are offered to 

 the eye. What may we not expect from the picturesque 

 study of nature in such scenes, if after the termination of 

 civil discord and the establishment of free institutions, 



