xlv 



peculiar charm to the description of their 

 manners. Here a king, followed by a 

 numerous suite, comes and presents the 

 fruits of his orchard ; there, the funereal 

 festival imbrowns the shade of the lofty 

 forest. Such pictures, no doubt, have 

 more attraction than those, which portray 

 the solemn gravity of the inhabitant of the 

 banks of the Missouri or the Maranon. 



If America occupies no important place 

 in the history of mankind, and of the 

 ancient revolutions which have agitated the 

 human race, it offers an ample field to the 

 labours of the naturalist. On no other 

 part of the Globe is he called upon more 

 powerfully by nature, to raise himself to 

 general ideas on the cause of the pheno- 

 mena, and their natural connection. I 

 shall not speak of that luxuriance of vege- 

 tation, that eternal spring of organic life, 

 those climates varying by stages as we 

 climb the flanks of the Cordilleras, and 

 those majestic rivers which a celebrated 

 writer * has described with so much grace- 



Mr. Chateaubriand. 



