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settled in a zone, where the climate, the produc- 

 tions, the aspect of the sky, and the scenery of 

 the landscape, differ altogether from those of Eu- 

 rope. The colonist vainly bestows on moun- 

 tains, rivers, and vallies, those names, which call 

 to his remembrance the sites of the mother 

 country ; these names soon lose their attraction, 

 and have no meaning with the generations that 

 succeed. Under the influence of an exotic na- 

 ture, habits are generated, that are adapted to 

 new wants ; national remembrances are insen- 

 sibly effaced ; and those that remain, like phan- 

 toms of the imagination, have neither " a local 

 habitation, nor a name." The glory of Don Pe- 

 lagio, and of the Cid Campeador, has penetrated 

 even to the mountains and forests of America ; 

 the people sometimes pronounce these illustrious 

 names ; but they form no other notions of their 

 existence, than that of heroes belonging to some 

 vague period of fabulous times. 



This foreign firmament, this contrast of cli- 

 mate, this physical conformation of the country, 

 have a more decided effect on the state of soci- 

 ety in the colonies, than the absolute distance of 

 the mother country. Such is the improved state 

 of modern navigation, that the mouths of the 

 Oroonoko and of the Rio de la Plata seem more 

 contiguous to Spain, than in former times Pha- 

 sis and Tartessus did to the coasts of Greece 

 and Phoenicia. We even observe, that, in re- 



