PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OP PERU. 



fill world we are about to sketch, would be obscured by the 

 imperfe6t descriptions of our pen, if it had not been illustrated 

 by the divinest poet of the age, to whose sublime genius the 

 task was reserved. 



Felices nimium populi, quels prodiga tellus 

 Fundit opes ad vota suas, quels contigit ^stas 

 vEinula verls, Hyems sine fi igore, nubibus aer 

 Usque carens, nulloque solum foecundius imbre*. 



Certain philosophers have undertaken to eredl to Nature a 

 temple worthy of her immensity — a temple in which, her pro- 

 du6lions being deposited, the skeletons of all organized beings 

 should be collected in the centre ; and that over this tomb of 

 corpses death should hover, to give life and vigour to art. 

 Peru is her august temple, in which, without the necessity of 



traiy. The above-mentioned diredlions having been examined with the nicest atten- 

 tion, it appears that neldier the particular serieses proceed precisely from east to west, 

 nor the junction of them north and south. The latter declines to the south-east, and 

 the particular serieses decline in the same proportion, to the westward from west to 

 south-west, and to the eastward from east to north-east. The reason of this is, that 

 South America does not completely intersedl the Equator. Thus, if a line weve to 

 be drawn through its middle, longitudinally, it would form with the Equino£lial 

 Line an angle of sixty degrees only, instead of ninety. To restore the diredions of 

 our Cordilleras in such a way as tliat they should look precisely towards the cardinal 

 points, it would be necessary that a comet, such as the one of which Whistou 

 dreamed, should make its appearance, should suddenly attach this continent to Cape 

 Horn, and push it thirty degrees to the westward. 



* Vanier, Praed. page 117. 



These lines may be thus freely translated : 



" O happy people, to whom the earth pours forth her stores at will ; on whom 

 providence has bestowed summers, the coolness of which emulate the spring ; win- 

 ters without cold ; a cloudless firmament ; and a soil highly fertile without showers." 



E 2 the 



