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Show 40 STEPPES AND DESERTS. But the Indians, armed with long poles of bamboo, drive them back into the middle of the pool. Gradually the fury of the unequal strife begins to slacken. Like clouds which have discharged their electricity, the wearied fish begin to disperse j long repose and abundant food are required to replace the galvanic force which they have expended. Their shocks become gradually weaker and weaker. Terrified by the noise of the trampling horses, they timidly approach the bank, where they are wounded by harpoons, and cautiously drawn on shore by non-conducting pieces of dry wood. Such is the extraordinary battle between horses and fish. That which forms the invisible but living weapon of this electric eel;that which, awakened by the contact of moist, dissimilar particles, (43) circulates through all the organs of plants and animals;- that which, flashing from the thunder cloud, illumines the wide skyey canopy ;-that which draws iron to iron, and directs the silent recurring march of the guiding needle ;-all, like the several hues of the divided ray of light, flow from one source; and all blend again together in one perpetually, everywhere diffused, force or power. I might' here close the hazardous attempt to trace a picture of nature such as she shows herself in the Steppes. But as on the ocean fancy not unwillingly dwells awhile on the image of its distant shores, so, before the wide plain disappears from our view, let us cast a rapid glance at the regions by which the Steppes are bounded. The Northern Desert of Africa divides two races of men who belong originally to the same part of the globe, and whose unreconciled discord appears as ancient as the mythus of Osiris and Typhon. (44) North of the Atlas there dwell nations with long aud straight hair, of sallow complexion, and Caucasian features. On the south of the Senegal, towards Soudan, live hordes of negroes in many different stages of civilization. In Central Asia, the Mongolian Steppe divides Siberian barbarism from the ancient civilization of the peninsula of India. The South American Steppes form the boundary of a partial European cultivation. (45) To the north, between the mountains of Venezuela and the Caribbean sea, we find commercial cities, neat villages, and carefully cultivated fields. Even the love of art and scientific culture, together with the noble desire of civil freedom, |