FIRST JOURNEY. 23 



can now hardly support itself, and in a few months 

 more it will have fallen into the water. 



Put thy foot on that large trunk thou seest to the 

 left. It seems entire amid the surrounding fragments. 

 Mere outward appearance, delusive phantom of what it 

 once was ! Tread on it, and, like the fuss-ball, it will 

 break into dust. 



Sad and silent mementos to the giddy traveller as he 

 wanders on ! Prostrate remnants of vegetable nature, 

 how incontestably ye prove what we must all at last 

 come to, and how plain your mouldering ruins show 

 that the firmest texture avails us nought when Heaven 

 wills that we should cease to be ! 



" The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces. 

 The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 

 Yea, all which it inhabit, shall dissolve, 

 And, like the baseless fabric of a vision, 

 Leave not a wreck behind." 



Cast thine eye around thee, and see the thousands 

 of nature's productions. Take a view of them from 

 the opening seed on the surface, sending a downward 

 shoot, to the loftiest and the largest trees, rising up 

 and blooming in wild luxuriance ; some side by side, 

 others separate ; some curved and knotty, others straight 

 as lances ; all, in beautiful gradation, fulfilling the 

 mandates they had received from Heaven, and though 

 condemned to die, still never failing to keep up their 

 species till time shall be no more. 



Reader, canst thou not be induced to dedicate a few 

 months to the good of the public, and examine with 

 thy scientific eye the productions which the vast and 

 well-stored colony of Demerara presents to thee 1 ? 



What an immense range of forest is there from the 



