PREFACE. vii 



increasing development of life. The picture changes every moment, 

 and every moment grows more animated. The scenes of the savage 

 world unfold before our eyes like a moving panorama ; unexpected 

 incidents and dramatic episodes multiply one upon another. Every 

 region appears before us with its primitive aspect, its grand and 

 picturesque landscapes, its characteristic fauna and flora frequently, 

 also, with its tribes of white, or tawny, or black, or copper-coloured 

 men, whose singular manners, brutal instincts, fierce passions, and 

 wretched condition offer, in all its mournful reajity, the spectacle of 

 that "state of nature" celebrated by a great writer as the ideal of 

 virtue and happiness. 



To conclude : the task which I here pursue is the same which I 

 recently commenced by the publication of my " Mysteries of the 

 Ocean ;"* to invite and prepare the general reader and the young for 

 the study of the physical and natural sciences, by bringing before 

 them the most interesting results of the discoveries and the observa- 

 tions with which these sciences have been enriched. Only, this new 

 essay is entirely descriptive, and has no didactic pretensions. I 

 have contented myself with sketching the physiognomy of 

 the great regions not yet conquered by civilization, with indi- 

 cating the more remarkable features they present, the peoples by 

 whom they are inhabited, and the important plants and animals 



they nourish. 



THE AUTHOR. 



[The TRANSLATOR has only to add, that he has made copious 

 additions to the original work, with the view of rendering its scope 



* The " Mysteries of the Ocean," rendered into English by the Translator of " The 

 Bird " and of the present volume, is published, as a companion work, by Messrs. T. Nelson 

 and Sons. 



