PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
The object of the present work is to describe the landscape physiognomy of the vegetation of an interesting 
portion of tropical America. Powerfully excited by Baron Alexander Humboldt’s writings, the artist has himself 
visited the tropical regions, has studied them diligently and accurately, and, however imperfect his delineations 
may be found, he can at least vouch for their faithfulness. May they prove an aid to the imagination of those, 
who, equally with himself, stimulated by the inspired descriptions of the great master, would wish to picture to 
themselves those regions, so exceedingly favoured by nature. 
To figure to ourselves something totally unfamiliar to our minds, without a visible representation of the 
object, is at all times a difficult matter. Most of the component parts of a landscape, the rocks and the moun- 
tains, the air and the clouds, the hue of the water and the swell of the ocean, though presenting a great variety 
in their particular features, yet, upon the whole, bear a certain resemblance all over the globe. We have, in 
this instance, but modifications of what we behold daily in our own country ; hence, the facility with which the 
imagination conceives such objects. But it is different with vegetable productions. Here, the different zones 
present a multiform variety, such as the most vivid imagination is unable, without being assisted by illus- 
trations, to realize. 
Of detached plants, specimens from the hot-houses certainly convey a more lively picture than any illustra- 
tion, but not so as regards their appearance in groups, or those larger forms of the vegetable kingdom, which, 
in fact, determine the character of the landscape. The artist will be happy, if he has succeeded in contributing 
some small share to a more intimate acquaintance with the landscape physiognomy of the vegetation of tropical 
America. 
