PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OP PERU. 



21 



Europe, she aimed at assembling together in Peru all the pro- 

 du6lions she had denied to the other three quarters, to repose 

 there majestically, surrounded by each of them. Such and 

 so great are the riches this admirable kingdom contains ! In 

 describing its physical geography, it will not be inexpedient 

 to adopt certain divisions. We shall, in the first place, treat 

 of the general design of the two worlds which compose the 

 two principal parts of Peru ; of those two worlds which form 

 the august tempk of our mother and liberal benefa6lress. 

 Their limits, their dire6lions, their correspondences ; their 

 respedlive advantages over the rest of the terraqueous globe ; 

 and their preponderance and influx in the equilibrium of that 

 globe, are obje6ts which, presenting themselves on a large 

 scale, will lead and accustom us, without fatigue, to the de- 

 tailed examination of whatever each of them in particular 

 contains. O that any one could possess the divine and ener- 

 getic pencil of Nature, to give to his portraits the colouring 

 and delicacy with which she has beautified the original ! 



Peru, the limits of which are traced out by the great phe- 

 nomena that divide the provinces of its universal empire, 

 forms, without doubt, the whole of the southern part of the 

 Burning Zone, which runs north and south from the Equator 

 to the Tropic of Capricorn, and west and east from the bor- 

 ders of the Pacific Sea to the forests and desarts of the country 

 of the Amazons, by which the eastern branch of the Cordillera 

 of the Andes is terminated. Thus its greatest extension, which 

 is to be measured in degrees of latitude, embraces a space of 

 twenty- three degrees and a half, between Cape Palma on the 

 confines of Pasto, and Morro-Moreno on those of the king- 

 dom of Chile. Chosen to be the throne of light in the sou- 

 thern 



