XU 
PREFACE. 
The scenery was mountainous and varied, one vast 
wilderness, neglected and uncultivated; the very cattle 
appeared as wild as the bison of the prairies, and the 
prowling wolves ( Coyotes ) well fed, were as tame as 
dogs, and every night yelled familiarly through the 
village. In this region the Olive and the Vine throve 
with luxuriance and teemed with fruit; the Prickly 
Pears ( Cactus) became small trees, and the rare bloom- 
ing Aloe ( Agave americana ) appeared consigned without 
care to the hedge row of the garden. 
After a perilous passage around Cape Horn, the 
dreary extremity of South America, amidst mountains of 
ice which opposed our progress in unusual array, we 
arrived again at the shores of the Atlantic. Once more 
I hailed those delightful scenes of nature with which I 
had been so long associated. I rambled again through 
the shade of the Atlantic forests, or culled some rare 
productions of Flora in their native wilds. But the ‘oft 
told tale’ approaches to its close, and I must now bid 
a long adieu to the ‘new world,’ its sylvan scenes, its 
mountains, wilds and plains, and henceforth, in the 
evening of my career, I return, almost an exile, to the 
land of my nativity ! 
