Oct. 1836. 



CONCLUSION. 



605 



filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature i—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 the plains of Patagonia 

 frequently cross before my eyes : yet these plains are pro- 

 nounced by all most wretched and useless. They are 

 characterized only by negative possessions; without habi- 

 tations^ without water, without trees, without mountains, 

 they support merely a few dwarf plants. Why then, and 

 the case is not peculiar to myself, have these arid wastes 

 taken so firm possession of the memory ? Why have not 

 the still more level, the greener and more fertile Pampas, 

 which are serviceable to mankind, produced an equal 

 impression ? I can scarcely analyze these feelings : but it 

 must be partly owing to the free scope given to the 

 imagination. The plains of Patagonia are boundless, for 

 they are scarcely practicable, and hence unknown : they 

 bear the stamp of having thus lasted for ages, and there 

 appears no limit to their duration through future time. If, 

 as the ancients supposed, the flat earth was surrounded 

 by an impassable breadth of water, or by deserts heated 

 to an intolerable excess, who would not look at these last 

 boundaries to man^s knowledge with deep but ill-defined 

 sensations ? 



Lastly, of natural scenery, the views from lofty mountains, 

 though certainly in one sense not beautiful, are very memor- 

 able. When looking down from the crest of the highest 

 Cordillera, the mind undisturbed by minute details, was filled 

 • with the stupendous dimensions of the surrounding masses. 



Of individual objects, perhaps no one is more certain to 

 create astonishment than the first sight in his native haunt of 

 a real barbarian, — of man in his lowest and most savage 

 state. One^s mind hurries back over past centuries, and then 

 asks, could our progenitors have been such as these ? Men, 

 whose very signs and expressions are less intelligible to us 

 than those of the domesticated animals ; men, who do not 

 possess the instinct of those animals, nor yet appear to boast of 



