Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/349

 THE AMAZON VALLEY. 309

attracts his attention. The structure of some are unknown, and he is pleased to examine them. The locality of another is doubtful, and he feels a great pleasure in determining it. He is ever examining individual objects, and confounds his own interest in them, from a variety of causes, with the sensations produced by their beauty, and thus is led to give exaggerated descriptions of the luxuriance and splendour of the vegetation.

As most travellers are naturalists, this supposition will account for the ideas of the tropics generally obtained from a perusal of their works.

If I have come to a different conclusion, it is not that I am incapable of appreciating the splendours of tropical scenery, but because I believe that they are not of the kind usually represented, and that the scenery of our own land is, of its own kind, unsurpassed : there is nothing approaching it in the tropics, nor is the scenery of the tropics to be found with us. There, — singular forms of stems and climbers, gigantic leaves, elegant palms, and individual plants with brilliant flowers, are the characteristic features. Here, — an endless carpet of verdure, with masses of gay blossoms, the varying hues of the foliage, and the constant variety of plain and forest, meadow and woodland, more than individual objects, are what fill the beholder with delight.