ELEMENTS OF BARTRAM'S LANDSCAPE 87 



Tombigbee, Perdido, Mobile, Flint, Meherren, St. Johns, St. 

 Mary, Little St. Juan, Savannah, Altamaha, Broad, Pearl, Missis- 

 sippi. We have noted the effect upon him of his first glimpse of 

 the Mississippi, an effect very similar to Keat's image of the 

 effect upon " Stout Cortes " of a first glimpse of the Pacific. 

 This effect, in Bartram's case, must be attributed to his sense 

 of the majestic or, what he calls, the magnificent. Not only the 

 depth and the width of the Mississippi astonish him, but also 

 " the altitude, and theatrical ascents of its pensile banks." 

 These things and " the steady course of the mighty flood, the 

 trees, high forests, even every particular object, as well as 

 societies, bear the stamp of superiority and excellence; all unite 

 or combine in exhibiting a prospect of the grand sublime " 

 (pp. 427-428). 



In other words, the effect is due to the entire ensemble of 

 sense impressions. The Broad River " winds through a fertile 

 vale, almost overshadowed on one side by a ridge of high hills, 

 well timbered with Oak, Hiccory, Liriodendron, Magnolia acu- 

 minata . . ." (p. 44). The Altamaha is beautiful because on its 

 elevated shores there rise to view " yon Magnolian groves, from 

 whose tops the surrounding expanse is perfumed, by clouds of 

 incense blended with the exhaling balm of the Liquid-amber, 

 and odours continually arising from circumambient aromatic 

 groves of lUicium, Myrica, Laurus and Bignonia " (p. 48). 

 Similarly, the entire ensemble of impressions is responsible if 

 a river is not " beautiful " — and there are such in Bartram's 

 descriptions, although even those are described with a sense of 

 enjoyment. The Amite, for instance, has " scarcely a perceptible 

 current; the water dark, turgid and stagnate, being from shore 

 to shore covered with a scum or pellicle of a green and purplish 

 cast ... in short, these dark loathsome waters . . . seem to be 

 a strong extract or tincture of the leaves of the trees, herbs and 

 reeds, arising from the shores, and which almost overspread 

 them . . ." (pp. 425-426). It is his interest in such a river as 

 the turi^id and stagnant Amite that makes his description of a 

 " pellucid river " — the Little St. Juan — all the more impressive 

 in beauty. " The waters," he writes, "" are the clearest and 

 purest . . . transmitting distinctly the natural form and appear- 



