1836.] RETROSPECT. 503 
should be a botanist, for in all views plants form the chief embel- 
lishment. Group masses of naked rock even in the wildest forms, 
and they may for a time afford a sublime spectacle, but they will 
soon grow monotonous. Paint them with bright and varied co- 
lours, as in Northern Chile, they will become fantastic ; clothe 
them with vegetation, they must form a decent, if not a beautiful 
picture. 
When I say that the scenery of parts of Europe is probably supe- 
rior to anything which we beheld, I except, as a class by itself, 
that of the intertropical zones. The two classes cannot be com- 
pared together ; but I have already often enlarged on the grandeur 
of those regions. As the force of impressions generally depends 
on preconceived ideas, I may add, that mine were taken from the. 
vivid descriptions in the Personal Narrative of Humboldt, which 
far exceed in merit anything else which I have read. Yet with 
these high-wrought ideas, my feelings were far from partaking of 
a tinge of disappointment on my first and final landing on the 
shores of Brazil. 
Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, 
none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the 
hand of man; whether those of Brazil, where the powers of Life 
are predominant, or those of Tierra del Fuego, where Death and 
Decay prevail. Both are temples filled with the varied produc- 
tions of the God of Nature :—no one can stand in these solitudes 
unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere 
breath of his body. In calling up images of the past, I find that 
the plains of Patagonia frequently cross before my eyes; yet 
these plains are pronounced by all wretched and useless. They 
can be described only by negative characters; without habita- 
tions, without water, without trees, without mountains, they sup- 
port merely a few dwarf plants. Why then, and the case is not 
peculiar to myself, have these arid wastes taken so firm a hold on 
my memory? Why have not the still more level, the greener 
and more fertile Pampas, which are serviceable to mankind, pro- 
duced an equal impression? J can scarcely analyze these feel- 
ings: but it must be partly owing to the free scope given to the 
imagination. The plains of Patagonia are boundless, for they 
are scarcely passable, and hence unknown: they bear the stamp 
of having lasted, as they are now, for ages, and there appears no 
