THE ENJOYMENT OF NATUEE. 7 



Other impressions, better defined, affording more vivid 

 enjoyment and more congenial to some states of the mind, 

 depend more on the peculiar character and physiognomy of 

 the scene contemplated, and of the particular region of the 

 earth to which it belongs. They may be excited by views 

 the most varied ; either by the strife of nature, or by the 

 barren monotony of the steppes of Northern Asia, or by 

 the happier aspect of the wild fertility of nature reclaimed 

 to the use of man, fields waving with golden harvests, and 

 peaceful dwellings rising by the side of the foaming torrent . 

 for I regard here less the force of the emotion excited, than 

 the relation of the sensations and ideas awakened to that 

 peculiar character of the scene which gives them form and 

 permanence. If I might yield here to the charm of memory, 

 I would dwell on scenes deeply imprinted on my own recol- 

 lection on the calm of the tropic nights, when the stars, 

 not sparkling, as in our climates, but shining with a steady 

 beam, shed on the gently heaving ocean a mild and planetary 

 radiance; or I would recal those deep wooded valleys of the 

 Cordilleras, where the palms shoot through the leafy roof 

 formed by the thick foliage of other trees, above which their 

 lofty and slender stems appear in lengthened colonnades, " a 

 forest above a forest ( l ) " or the Peak of Teneriffe, when a 

 horizontal layer of clouds has separated the cone of cinders 

 from the world beneath, and suddenly the ascending current 

 of the heated air pierces the veil, so that the traveller, standing 

 on the very edge of the crater, sees through the opening the 

 vine-covered slopes of Orotava, and the orange gardens and 

 bananas of the coast. In such scenes it is no longer alone 

 the peaceful charm, of which the face of nature is never 

 wholly destitute, which speaks to our minds, but the peculiar 



