Page:Os Lusíadas (Camões, tr. Burton, 1880), Volume 1.djvu/18

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My chief qualifications for the task, however, are a thorough appreciation of the Poem and a hearty admiration for the Poet whom I learned to love in proportion as I learned to know him. His Lusiads has been described as une lecture saine et fortifiante. I would say far more. The Singer's gracious and noble thoughts are reviving as the champagne-air of the mountain-top. His verse has the true heroic ring of such old ballads as:—

And with this love and sympathy of mine mingles not a little gratitude. During how many hopeless days and sleepless nights Camoens was my companion, my consoler, my friend;—on board raft and canoe; sailer and steamer; on the camel and the mule; under the tent and the jungle-tree; upon the fire-peak and the snow-peak; on the Prairie, the Campo, the Steppe, the Desert!

Where no conversable being can be found within a march of months; and when the hot blood of youth courses, through the brain, Ennui and Nostalgia are readily bred, while both are fatal to the Explorer's