10 EAMBLES OF A NATUEALIST. [Oh. I. 



these perishable animals ; but has, unfortunately, the draw- 

 back that, it unfits them for subsequent dissection, so that it 

 is always advisable to place some specimens in this medium, 

 and others in spirit, for the use of the comparative anatomist. 



Once more, after a week's voyaging over the calm waters 

 of the Indian Ocean, the view changes, and for a few hours 

 we are walking through the cocoa-nut gi'oves and cinnamon 

 gardens of Ceylon. Glad, indeed, were we of the shade 

 afforded by the over-arching palms, which here, for the first 

 time, greeted om- eyes with all the luxuriance of equatorial 

 vegetation, — a change rendered the more agreeable and 

 striking by the contrast it afforded to the barren rocks, 

 which, since we quitted Marseilles, had everywhere met our 

 view, excepting only the green patch of Delta between 

 Alexandria and Cairo. Here plantains and pumilows, limes 

 and pine-apples are to be had almost for the asking; and 

 here, after a glorious drive through a forest of palms, thickly 

 studded with native cottages, about which dusky forms 

 hovered, and little naked children who required no pro- 

 tection for their tender bodies, we at length seated ourselves 

 beside a bed of the sensitive mimosa, and enjoyed a prospect 

 as though the view from Eichmond Hill had been trans- 

 ported to a tropical clime, with all the voluptuous accompani- 

 ments of a garden in Paradise. 



But in these latitudes during the fine season the ocean 

 presents aspects nothing inferior in glory and magnificence 

 to the scenes beheld on land. A perfect calm, such as 

 occurred a few days later, was a thmg to be remembered ; 

 and although I have seen many calms since, they have by 

 no means always combined every element of beauty which 

 tended to make this one unique. The sea was like an azure 

 mifror, polished, spotless, and brilliant, in which the slightest 



