PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OP PERU. 



31 



Nature needs not the help of man, to preserve the posthu- 

 mous fame of her philosophers. Bearing therefore in our re- 

 colledlion, that the tombs of Csesar and Alexander no longer 

 exist, and that those which modern nations have raised to 

 their heroes, must inevitably decay and perish, let us engrave 

 on these solid rocks, sacred to the memory of our sages, and 

 which time has respe61:ed : unius cetatts sunt, quce fortitur Jiunt: 

 quce vero pro utilitate reipublicce scribuntur externa sunt. Lastly, 

 instead of being terrified at their aspe6t, let us aspire to live 

 amid the ruins of Peru. 



Hitherto we have sketched the temple which Nature has 

 ere6led to herself on two worlds, so far as it has been within 

 our grasp and our view. The capitals of her proud columns 

 rising into the region of the clouds, are not to be traced by our 

 pencil. It maybe said that glory has fixed on them her throne, 

 securing it on crystal pedestals, which, refra6ling the light in 

 every dire6lion, represent in the ether the fountains and gardens 

 of Elysium, seen through the prism. Commanding thence the 

 whole of the universe, she serenely views beneath her feet the 

 generation and shock of the tempests which affright living mor- 

 tals, and discovers the inexhaustible sources whence spring the 

 abundant rivers that empty themselves into the ocean*, to 

 enable the industrious European to supply, with the produc- 

 tions of every part of the globe, the country which invigorates 



* It is certain that no part of the earth supplies a greater proportion of water to 

 the sea than the cordillera of the Andes. In his voyage, Condamine has very justly 

 ohserved, " that the rivers which intersedl the country of the Amazons are not rivers, 

 but seas of fresh water." The celebrated Indus of Asia, the Nile of Africa, and 

 the Danube of Europe, can scarcely be brought into a comparison with the Ucayali, 

 Beni, and other rivers which unite in the formidable Maranon. 



his 



