Hence, a traveller should be a botanist, for in all views
plants form the chief embellishment. Group masses of naked rock
even in the wildest forms, and they may for a time afford a sublime
spectacle, but they will soon grow monotonous. Paint them with
bright and varied colours, as in Northern Chile, they will become
fantastic; clothe them with vegetation, they must form a decent, if
not a beautiful picture.
When I say that the scenery of parts of Europe is probably superior
to anything which we beheld, I except, as a class by itself, that
of the intertropical zones. The two classes cannot be compared
together; but I have already often enlarged on the grandeur of
those regions. As the force of impressions generally depends on
preconceived ideas, I may add that mine were taken from the vivid
descriptions in the "Personal Narrative" of Humboldt, which far
exceed in merit anything else which I have read. Yet with these
high-wrought ideas, my feelings were far from partaking of a tinge
of disappointment on my first and final landing on the shores of
Brazil.
Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed
in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man;
whether those of Brazil, where the powers of Life are predominant,
or those of Tierra del Fuego, where Death and Decay prevail.
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