352 THE .ESTHETICS OP 



Europe. As there the arid Sandy Heaths alternate with 

 the wet Moors, so here in a more varied manner do the 

 dry, waterless tracts, with the marshy grounds. But we 

 are here in Wahlenberg's region of Lichens and Mosses. 

 The arid situations are clothed, in expanses over which the 

 eye cannot reach, with dry, lead-grey Lichens, among which 

 the reindeer seeks his meagre sustenance, and in the half- 

 fluid grounds, which will not bear the lightest footstep, a 

 luxuriant vegetation of Mosses deceives us, in the distance, 

 with the aspect of a smiling meadow. Here the incautious 

 wanderer sinks into the water, which is rather concealed 

 than displaced by the Mosses, while on those Lichen 

 Heaths, Tundras the Laplanders call them, in summer the 

 glowing soil makes every step a torture. 



The Wood-formations of the South American Catingas 

 may be opposed to the northern Leafy woods and, in like 

 manner, the plains of the Llanos of Venezuela to the 

 Russian Steppes. In the former, of which A. von 

 Humboldt has given such a vivid sketch, the sleep of 

 Nature commences with summer, in the hot, dry season ; 

 the vegetation becomes dried up and falls to dust, leaving 

 the ground bare ; animal life, in the quadrupeds, flies from 

 the dead land, while the crocodiles and boas burrow into the 

 mud of the gradually exhausted rivers of the steppes, and 

 with this become fixed, till the first torrent of rain, which 

 conjures up a fresh, youthful vegetation on the barren soil, 

 again awakens them to life. 



It is different in the Steppes which stretch from 

 southern Russia eastward through central Asia. I will 

 only mention the strange Salt-steppes, which in summer 

 often glance like newly fallen snow, from the salt which 

 effloresces from the soil, and nourish a wholly peculiar 

 vegetation. Yet I cannot refrain from attempting a brief 



