THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



the beautifully changing scene for an hour, until 

 hill and valley were lighted up."* 



Cowper has selected '"The Winter Walk at Noon" 

 for one of the books of his charming "Task;" and 

 as nihil quod tetigit non ornavit, so he has 

 sketched a beautiful picture: — 



M Upon the southern side of the slant hills, 

 And where the woods fence off the northern blast, 

 The season smiles, resigning all its rage, 

 And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue, 

 Without a cloud, and white without a speck 

 The dazzling splendour of the scene below. 



****** 

 No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. 

 The redbreast warbles still, but is content 

 With slender notes, and more than half suppress'd : 

 Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light 

 From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes 

 From many a twig the pendant drops of ice, 

 That tinkle in the wither'd leaves below.'" 



But how different from such a scene is a tropical 

 noon — a noon in Guiana, or Brazil, for example! 

 There, too, an almost death-like quietude reigns, 

 but it is a quietude induced by the furnace-like 

 heat of the vertical sun, whose rays pour down 

 with a direct fierceness, from which there is no 

 shadow except actually beneath some thick tree, 

 such as the mango, whose dense and dark foliage 

 affords an absolutely impenetrable umbrella in the 

 brightest glare. Such, too, is the smooth-barked 

 mangabeira, a tree of vast bulk, with a wide- 

 spreading head of dense foliage, beneath which, 

 when the sun strikes mercilessly on every other 

 spot, all is coolness and repose. The birds are all 

 silent, sitting with panting beaks in the thickest 

 foliage; no tramp or voice of beast is heard, for 

 these are sleeping in their coverts. Ever and anon 

 the seed-capsule of some forest- tree bursts with a 

 * Atkinson's ' k Siberia," p. 59. 

 28 



