616 The Andes and the Amazons. 



Now, in South America, Nature lias framed her works 

 on a gigautic scale. All her adjectives are superlatives. 

 Her sublime cougregation of mountains, plains, and rivers 

 is unrivaled. He who sails upon the Amazons sails upon 

 the largest river in the world, and through a forest unpar- 

 alleled in extent. Talk not of such a forest as a solitary 

 place. Did you ever try to read in the woods ? And did 

 you not " find tongues in trees " that called you away from 

 the brightest page of human genius? We pity the man, 

 the atmosphere of whose heart is so misty and stormy 

 that he can stand within the luxuriant forest of the Ama- 

 zons, and sigh, 



" O Solitude, where are thy charms?" 



He who is fairly awake can never fall asleep over the im- 

 mensity and diversity of the glorious vegetation beside 

 the Great E.i\er. And then, as you ascend toward the 

 sources, you behold from some commanding point the vast 

 evergreen forest falling in deep folds from the slopes of 

 the Andes, as royal robes from a monarch's shoulders. 

 What if the route I am to describe is not lined with Babel 

 towers and crowded cities ? Can any human architecture 

 compete in impressiveness with the architecture of the An- 

 des ? It is impossible to examine the structure of such a 

 mountain-system without concluding with Ruskin that "it 

 has been prepared in order to unite as far as possible, and 

 in the closest compass, every means of delighting and 

 sanctifying the heart of man." 



" These great cathedrals of the earth, with their gates 

 of rock, pavements of cloud, choirs of stream and stone, 

 altars of snow, and vaults of purple, traversed by the con- 

 tinual stars," are sanctuaries of ravishing magnificence and 

 splendor. The sea-like Amazons is the symbol of repose ; 

 the riven Andes is the emblem of convulsive energy — 



