938 Demerara. [ December, 
both abounding in creatures of decidedly anti-domestic tenden- 
cies, render exploration difficult, and turn even a so-called pleas- 
ure trip into arduous labor. So far as plantations and isolated 
settlements extend, transportation is a matter of no difficulty, 
even steam being employed for the convenience of passengers 
and freight. Beyond these limits, however, only great endurance 
and immunity from climatal influences, will enable the stranger 
to satisfy his thirst for knowledge of a region but little known to 
the civilized world. 
Almost involuntarily the comparison obtrudes itself between 
exploration in arctic and tropical regions. On the one hand a 
temperature which would seem to congeal every impulse, benumb 
every physical and mental capacity; on the other, a degree of 
heat which renders alike exercise and rest a matter of positive 
danger, and produces conditions of mental indolence and apathy 
similar to the first. Passing over rugged, broken fields of ice and 
snow, where every individual force is brought into requisition, 
may be compared to the struggle through densely matted forests, 
through treacherous marshes, 
« Where at each step the stranger fears to wake 
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake.” 
Unequal, however, would seem the reward. While atmospheric 
phenomena alone beautify the field of the arctic explorer, ck a08 
to him the midnight sun is but a weird shadow of the 9.40 
longs for, and while the fitful gleams of an aurora bring to persue 
the indestructible forces of nature, every step in the tropica 
country, unless it be a desert, calls forth admiration and ene 
at the vigor and fullness of animal and vegetable life. eas 
the most profound interest rise up before him, forms of which 
finds but the stony record of bygone eras in his own es 
The marvelous vitality of plant life, too, affords hima _ 
into the sealed book of geological age, where time appears 12 
annihilated. : the 
Approaching by sea from the northward, a dark line along é 
horizon denotes the presence of land. As the water 1s a 
the vicinity of the coast, all ships of heavy draught are ob * ae 
to wait for high tide before entering the harbor of Co oe 
_ Demerara’s capital. “A chapter on the gradual accretion of | es 
- and on the hydrographi ditions of the northern coast of 5° k 
_ America, would here be out of place, so it may suffice to ser 
