EARLY VISITS. 
5 
to the description of their manners. Here, a king, 
followed by a numerous suite, comes and presents 
the fruits of his orchard; there, the funeral festival 
embrowns the shade of the lofty forest. Such 
pictures, no doubt, have more attraction than those 
which portray the solemn gravity of the inhabitants 
of the Missouri or the Maranon.”* 
Since the death of Captain Cook, several intel¬ 
ligent and scientific men from England, France, 
and Russia, have undertaken voyages of discovery 
in the South Seas, and have favoured the world 
with the result of their enterprises. Their accounts 
are read with interest, not only by those engaged 
in nautical pursuits and the promotion of geogra¬ 
phical science, but by the philosopher, who seeks 
to study human nature under all its diversified 
forms ; and by the naturalist, who investigates the 
phenomena of our globe, and the varied produc¬ 
tions of its surface. Voyages of discovery are also 
favourite volumes with the juvenile reader. They 
impart to the youthful mind many delightful and 
glowing impressions relative to the strange and 
interesting scenes they exhibit, which in after-life 
are seldom obliterated.—There are few who do not 
retain the vivid recollections of their first perusal 
of Prince Leeboo, or Captain Cook's Voyages. 
Often, when a school-boy, I have found the most 
gratifying recreation, for a winter's evening, in 
reading the account of the wreck of the Antelope, 
the discovery of Tahiti, and other narratives of a 
similar kind. Little, however, did I suppose, when 
in imagination I have followed the discoverer from 
island to island, and have gazed in fancy on their 
romantic hills and valleys, together with their 
strange but interesting inhabitants, that I should 
* Humboldt Pers. Nar. preface. 
