THE ENJOYMENT OF NATURE. 11 



feet of elevation : thus the region of organic life ceases at a 

 limit nearly three thousand feet ( 5 ) below that which it 

 reaches in the equinoctial portion of the Cordilleras. 



But the mountainous regions which are situated near the 

 equator possess another advantage, to which attention has 

 not been hitherto sufficiently directed. They are that part of 

 our planet in which the contemplation of nature offers in 

 the least space the greatest possible variety of impressions. 

 In the Andes of Cundinamarca, of Quito, and of Peru, fur- 

 rowed by deep barrancas, it is permitted to man to contem- 

 plate all the families of plants and all the stars of the 

 firmament. There, at a single glance, the beholder sees lofty 

 feathered palms, humid forests of bamboos, and all the beau 

 tiful family of Musacese ; and, above these tropic forms, oaks, 

 medlars, wild roses, and umbelliferous plants, as in our Euro- 

 pean homes ; there, too, both the celestial hemispheres are 

 open to his view, and, when night arrives, he sees displayed 

 together the constellation of the Southern Cross, the Mi 

 gollanic clouds, and the guiding stars of the Bear which circle 

 round the Arctic pole. There, the different climates of the 

 earth, and the vegetable forms of which they determine the 

 succession, are placed one over another, stage above stage ; 

 and the laws of the decrement of heat are indelibly written 

 on the rocky walls and the rapid slopes of the Cordilleras, in 

 characters easily legible to the intelligent observer. Not to 

 weary the reader with details of phsenomena which I long since 

 attempted ( 6 ) to represent graphically, I will here retrace only a 

 few of the more comprehensive features which, in their com- 

 bination, form those pictures of the torrid zone. That which, 

 in impressions received solely by our senses, partakes of an 

 uncertainty, similar to the effect of the misty atmosphere, 



