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Show 170 CATARACTS OF TilE ORINOCO. or less in harmony with the requirements of our feelings. For it is the inward mirror of the sensitive mind which reflects the true and living image of the natural world. All that determines the character of a landscape-the outline of the mountains, which, in the far-vanishing distance, bound the ho:rizon-the dark shade of the pine forests-the sylvan torrent rushing between overhanging cliffs to its fall-all are in antecedent, mysterious communion with the inner feelings and life of man. On this communion rests the nobler portion of the enjoyment which nature affords. Nowhere does she penetrate us more deeply with the feeling of her grandeur, nowhere does she speak to us with a more powerful voice, than in the tropical world, under the u Indian sky," as, in the early middle ages, the climate of the torrid zone was called. If, therefore, I venture again to occupy this assembly with a description of those regions, I do so in the hope that the peculiar charm which belongs to them will not be unfelt. The remembrance of a distant, richly endowed land-the aspect of a free and vigorous vegetation-refreshes and strengthens the mind ; in the same manner as our spirits, when oppressed with the actual present, love to escape awhile, and to delight themselves with the earlier youthful age of mankind, and with the manifestations of its simple grandeur. Favoring winds and currents bear the voyager westward across the peaceful Ocean arm (1) which fills the wide valley between the New Continent and Western Africa. Before the America.n shore rises from the liquid pbin, he hears the tumult of contending, mutually opposing, and inter-crossing waves. The mariner unacquainted with the region would surmise the vicinity of shoals, or a wonderful out.brcak of fresh springs in the middle of the ocean, (2) like those in the neighborhood of Cuba. On approaching nearer to the granitic coast of Guiana, he becomes sensible that he has entered the wide embouchure of a mighty river, which issues forth like a shoreless lake, and covers the ocean around with fresh water. The green, and, on the shallows, the milk-white, tint of the fresh water contrasts with the indigo-blue color of the sea, and marks with sharp outlines the limits of the river waves. The name Orinoco, gi\·cn to the river by its fu·st discoverers, and which probably originated in some confusion of language, is un- |