Or English blood-of Tuscan birth, What country should we give her? Instead of any on the earth, The civic heavens receive her. And here among the English tombs, Bright featured as the July sun Her little face still played in- So, LILY-from those July hours- She looked such kindship to the flowers Was but a little taller. A Tuscan lily-only white; As Dante, in abhorrence Of red corruption, wished, aright, We could not wish her whiter:-her This July creature thought perhaps And mimicked the gnat's humming. Said "Father, Mother;"-then, left off— "Let little children come to me, And do not thou forbid them." So, unforbidding, have we met, And gently here have laid her; Though Winter is no time to get The flowers that should o'erspread her. We should bring pansies, quick with Spring, Rose, violet, daffodilly And also, above everything, White lilies for our LILY. Nay, more than flowers this grave exacts- Of her sweet eyes and pretty acts- Her very mother, with light feet, Saying "The angels have thee, sweet, But winter kills the orange-buds- Poor earth-poor heart !-too weak, too weak Poor heart-what bitter words we speak- Sustain that heart in us that faints, Thou God, the Self-Existent! We catch up wild at parting saints, To us-us also open straight!- O, my own baby on my knees, My little feet, my little hands, And hair of LILY's color! But God gives patience-Love learns strength: And Hope itself can smile at length On other hopes gone from us. Love, strong as Death, can conquer Death, Arms empty of her child she lifts- "Still mine-maternal rights serene Not given to another!" The crystal bars shine faint between "Meanwhile," the mother cries, "content! Its sweetness following where she went, "To us-the grave; to her-the rows, "Grow fast in Heaven, sweet LILY clipped, "While none shall tell thee of our tears- "Child, father, mother-who, left out? "Some smiling angel close shall stand, For Death's ANNUNCIATION." 373 From the North British Review. HUMBOLDT'S ASPECTS OF NATURE IN DIFFERENT LANDS. Aspects of Nature, in Different Lands and Different Climates, with Scientific Elucidations. By ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. Translated by MRS. SABINE. In 2 vols. 12mo. Pp. 650.* WHEN We contemplate the natural world in our own fatherland, as seen from different stations on its surface, and at different seasons of the revolving year, it presents to us but a single aspect, however diversified be its forms, and however varied its phenomena Like the race which occupies it, the scenery within each horizon has its family likeness, and the landscape from each spot its individual features, while the general picture of hill and dale, and heath and forest, have their similitude in the character and costume of the people. During the daily and annual revolutions of our globe, the sun sheds his varying lights and hues over the more permanent and solid forms of nature, and carries in his train those disturbing elements which give an interest to each passing hour, and invest the seasons with all the variety which characterizes them. The external world may thus lose for a while its normal aspect-what is fixed may for an instant be displaced, and what is stable subverted; but amid all the new and returning conditions of the year, whether the god of day gives or withdraws his light-whether the firmament smiles in azure or frowns in gloom-whether the lightning plays in its summer gleams, or rages in its fiery course-whether vegetation dazzles with its youthful green, or charms with its tint of age, or droops under the hoary covering of winter-under all these expressive phases of its life, nature presents to us but one aspect characteristic of the latitude under which we live, and the climate to which we belong. The inhabitant of so limited a domain, even if he has surveyed it in all its relations, has no adequate idea of the new and striking aspects in which nature shows herself in other lands, and under other climates. Even [The authorship of this erudite and instructive article may be safely assigned to Sir DAVID BREWSTER.-ED.] in the regions of civilization, where her forms have, to a certain extent, been modified by art, and her creations placed in contrast with those of man, she still wears a new aspect, often startling by its novelty, and overpowering by its grandeur. To the fur-clad dweller among ice and snow, the aspects of nature in the temperate and torrid zones must be signally pleasing. The rich and luxurious productions of a genial and fervid climate, and the gay coloring of its spring and its autumn, must form a striking contrast with the scanty supplies of a frozen soil, and the sober tints of a stunted vegetation; and the serf or the savage who has prostrated himself before a petty tyrant, in his hall of wood or of clay; or the worshiper who has knelt on the sea-shore, or offered incense in the cavern or in the bush, must stand appalled before the magnificent temples of Christian or of Pagan opulence, and amidst the "cloudcapped towers and gorgeous palaces" of civilization. Nor is the aspect of the arctic zone less curious and interesting to the southern eye. On her regions of eternal snow, which the summer sun is unable even to thaw, the tracts of commerce and the footprints of travel are unseen. The shadow of man and of beast alone variegates the winding-sheet of vegetable life; mountains of fire, and plains of sulphur, stand in curious juxtaposition to precipices of ice and accumulations of snow, and from the glacier margin of the ocean are detached the gigantic icebergs, which, drifting to the southern seas, and raising only their heads above the waves, often threaten the tempest-driven mariner with destruction. To these singular aspects of arctic nature we may add one still more singular-the one long day of light, and the one long night of darkness, which alternately cheer and depress its short-lived and apparently miserable population. The inhabitants, both of the old and new is engraven on walls of stone, in characters world, who occupy populous cultivated which long baffled his ingenuity; but the plains, are no less startled with nature's as-geologist and the naturalist have at last depect, when they enter the lofty regions of ciphered them. He whose power is infinite the Himalaya and the Andes, or cast their could have called the earth into being in the eye over the trackless deserts of Africa, or very instant which preceded the creation of the elevated plateaus of Central Asia and man; but that power has been exercised America, or the Patagonian desert of shin- through other agencies, and in conformity gle, or the grassy Llanos of Orinoco and Ve- with material laws; and long cycles of years nezuela, or the endless forests of the Ama- have thus been required to prepare the earth zons. The phases of the material world are for the reception of beings intellectual and there altogether new. Even the European, immortal. To read that history, to study whose horizon is a circle, and the shepherd these antiquities, and to contemplate with of the Landes, who is elevated on stilts in or- wonder and awe the subterranean aspects of der to watch his flocks, would stand aghast nature, is a privilege which none who unin the boundless desert of Sahara, which no derstand it will renounce, and a duty which foliage colors, and no moisture bedews; none who enter upon it will decline. and the crystal or the chamois hunter of the Alps, who has paced the flanks of Mont Blanc, or the peasant who slumbers at its base, would view with mute admiration the peaks of Dwalaghiri or Pinchincha; while the naturalist, who had been amused with the eruptions of Vesuvius and of Etna, would stand unnerved beside the outbursts of Catopaxi or Hirouæa. Nor are these striking aspects of nature confined to the structure of the inorganic world; they are displayed to us with no inferior interest in the diversified phenomena of animal and of vegetable existence. Although organic life is universally distributed throughout the earth, the ocean, and the air, yet under different latitudes it exhibits very opposite aspects. The vital functions are nearly suspended in the gelid regions of the poles, where man is almost driven into hybernation like the brutes; while in the zones of the tropics we recognize the high pulse and the florid plethora of a rank and luxuriant exist ence. Within the vessels that heat has expanded, the sap of life flows with a more genial current, and the noble forms of mammiferous life bound with a light and elastic step over the thick carpet of flowers which nature annually weaves under a tropical sun and a cloudless sky. But it is not merely on the surface of the earth, and within the aqueous and aerial oceans which cover it, that nature displays her most interesting phases. Everything that we see around us the soil and its productions-the jungle and its denizens-the ocean and its life, are all of modern origin. Man himself, as the representative of his race, is but an upstart in the chronicle of time. The primeval antiquities of our planet, and the records of its ancient life, lie buried in the crypts beneath us. Its history The aspects of nature around us, and above us, and beneath us, while they are a never-ending source of instruction and enjoyment, cannot fail to prepare the mind for nobler studies, and for higher destinies. There is, doubtless, no living philosopher who could conduct us, with the same safety and interest as Baron Humboldt,* over these wonderful fields of the material world. With his own eye he has seen the grand phenomena which he records. He has trodden the deserts and the Llanos of the far west; he has climbed its volcanic cones, and breathed the vapors which they exhale; he has swept over its cataracts, and threaded its forests; and with the profound knowledge of a naturalist and a philosopher, he has described what he saw with all the precision of truth, and with all the eloquence of poetry. In the work which we have placed at the head of this article, its author "has sought to indicate the unfailing influence of external nature on the feelings, the moral dispositions, and the destinies of man," and viewing the "soothing influence of the contemplation of nature, as peculiarly precious to those who are oppressed with the cares or the sorrows of life," he dedicates his work more especially to them, and invites them, while " escaping from the stormy waves of life,' ," "to follow him in spirit to the recesses of the primæval forests, over the boundless surface of the steppe, and to the higher ridges of the Andes." Enjoying, "in his eightieth year, the satisfaction of completing a third edition of his work, and remoulding See our reviews of his Kosmos, in No. vii., and of his Researches in Central Asia, in No. xi. of this work. it entirely afresh, to meet the requirements | these desolate plains neither dew nor rain of the present time," he "hopes that these descends; and except in the Oases, to which volumes may tend to inspire and cherish a malefactors were sent in the later times of love for the study of nature, by bringing to- the Cæsars, vegetable life is wholly extinct. gether, in a small space, the results of care- Herds of antelopes, and swift-footed ostrichful observation, on the most varied subjects, es, roam through these vast regions; and by showing the importance of exact nume- though the verdant shores of the watered rical data, and the use to be made of them Oases are frequented by nomadic tribes, the by well-considered arrangement and compa- African desert must be regarded as uninhabrison, and by opposing the dogmatic half- itable by man. Bordering nations cross it knowledge and arrogant scepticism, which periodically, by routes which have been unhave long too much prevailed in what are changed for thousands of years, and by the called the higher circles of society."* aid of the camel, the ship of the desert, the adventurous merchant is enabled to cross it from Tafilet to Timbuctoo, and from Moorzouk to Bornou. The extent of these vast plains, lying partly within, and partly in the vicinity, of the tropics, is three times as great as that of the Mediterranean Sea. In the first volume of his work, Baron Humboldt treats of the steppes and deserts of the earth of the cataracts of the Orinoco, and of the nocturnal life in animals in the primæval forests; and in the second, he discusses the physiognomy of plants, describes the structure and mode of action of volcanoes in different parts of the globe, treats of the vital force, and concludes with a description of the plateau of Caxamarca, the ancient capital of the Inca Atahualpa, and the first view of the Pacific Ocean from the crest of the Andes. These different treatises, as we may call them, are concise and popular, for the perusal of the general reader, and are followed by copious annotations and additions, for the use of those who wish to investigate more profoundly and extensively the subjects to which they relate. The widely extended, and apparently interminable plains, which have received the name of steppes, deserts, Llanos, pampas, prairies, and barrens, present themselves to the traveler under all the zones into which our globe has been divided; but in each they have a peculiar physiognomy, depending on diversity of soil, of climate, and of elevation above the sea. The heaths in the north of Europe, with their purple blossoms, rich in honey, extending from the point of Jutland to the mouth of the Scheldt, are regarded by our author as true steppes, though their extent is small, when compared with the Llanos or pampas of South America, or the prairies of the Missouri, or the barrens of the Coppermine river, on which the shaggy buffalo and the musk ox range in countless herds.t The desert plains in the interior of Africa are parts of a sea of sand, separating fertile regions, or enclosing them like islands. On *This observation is entirely inapplicable to the "higher circles of society" in England. The Indians sometimes kill from 600 to 700 buffaloes in a few days, by driving the wild herds into artificial enclosures. The most extensive, if not the loftiest steppes, on the surface of the globe, occur in the temperate zone, on the plateau of Central Asia, which lies between the gold mountains of the Altai and the Kuenlun. They extend from the Chinese wall to beyond the celestial mountains, and toward the sea of Aral, through a length of many thousand miles. About thirty years after his journey to South America, our author visited an extent of 2800 miles of these Asiatic steppes. Sometimes hilly, and sometimes interrupted by dispersed groups of pine forests, they exhibit a far more varied vegetation than those of the new world. The finest parts of these plains, inhabited by pastoral tribes, are adorned with flowering herbaceous plants of great height; and while the traveler is driving in his Tartar carriage over their pathless surface, the thickly crowded plants bend before the wheels, and such is their height, that he is obliged to rise up and look around him, to see the direction in which to move. "Some of the Asiatic steppes are grassy plains; others are covered with succulent evergreen articulated soda plants; and many glisten from a distance with flakes of exuded salt, which cover the clayey soil, not unlike in appearance to fresh fallen snow." Dividing the very ancient civilization of Thibet and Hindostan from the rude nations of Northern Asia, these Mongolian and Tartarian steppes have, in various ways, exercised an important influence on the changeful destinies of man. "Compressing the population toward the South, they have tended, more than the Himalaya, or the snowy mountains of Sirinagur and Ghorka, to impede the intercourse of nations, and to place permanent limits to the extension of milder manners, and of artistic and intellectual cultivation in Nor- | of animal life; "a development limited only thern Asia." "But in the history of the past," says our author, "it is not alone as an opposing barrier that we must regard the plains of Central Asia. More than once they have proved the source from which devastation has spread over distant lands. The pastoral nations of these steppes-Moguls, Getæ, Alani, and Usuni-have shaken the world. As in the course of past ages, early intellectual culture has come, like the cheering light of the sun, from the East, so at a later period, from the same direction, barbaric rudeness has threatened to overspread and involve Europe in darkness. A brown pastoral race, of Tukiuish or Turkish descent-the Hiongnu, dwelling in tents of skins, inhabited the elevated steppes of Gobi. Long terrible to the Chinese power, a part of this tribe was driven back into Central Asia. The shock or impulse thus given passed from nation to nation, until it reached the ancient land of the Finns, near the Ural mountains. From thence Huns, Ávari, Ghazares, and various admixtures of Asiatic races, broke forth. Armies of Huns appeared successively on the Volga, in Pannonia, on the Marne, and on the Po, desolating those fair and fertile fields, which, since the time of Antenor, civilized man had adorned with successive monuments. Thus went forth from Mongolian deserts a deadly blast, which withered, on Cisalpine ground, the tender, long-cherished flower of art!" -Vol. i. p. 6. The great steppe of South America displays itself to the traveler's eye when he looks southward, on quitting the mountain valleys of Caraccas. It occupies a space of 256,000 English square miles, stretching from the coast chain of the Caraccas to the forests of Guiana, and from the snowy mountains of Merida to the great Delta at the mouth of the Orinoco. To the south-west a branch is prolonged to the unvisited sources of the Guaviare, and the lonely mountains to which the excited fancy of the Spanish soldiery gave the name of Paramo de la Suma Paz-the seat of perfect peace. The Pampas of Buenos Ayres are of such extent, "that while their northern margin is bordered by palm trees, their southern extremity is almost continually covered with ice. In these grassy plains, troops of dogs, descended from those introduced by the colonists, have become completely wild. They live socially, inhabiting subterranean hollows, in which they hide their young, and often attacking man with a bloodthirsty rage. When the society becomes too numerous, some families migrate and form new colonies." The absence of human inhabitants from the South American steppes has given free scope for the development of the most varied forms by their mutual pressure, and similar to that of vegetable life in the forests of the Orinoco, where the Hymenæa and the gigantic laurel are never exposed to the destructive hand of climbers which twine around their massive man, but only to the pressure of the luxuriant trunks. Agoutis, small spotted antelopes, cuirassed armadilloes, which, like rats, startle the hare in its subterranean holes, herds of lazy chiguires, beautifully striped viverra, which poison the air with their odor, the large maneless lion, spotted jaguars (often called tigers), strong enough to drag away a young bull after killing him;-these, and many other forms of animal life, wander through the treeless plains." "Thus, almost exclusively inhabited by these wild animals, the steppe would offer little attraction or means of subsistence to those nomadic native hordes, who, like the Asiatics of Hindostan, prefer vegetable nutriment, if it were not for the occasional presence of single individuals of the fan palm, the mauritia. The benefits of this lifesupporting tree are widely celebrated; it alone, from the mouth of the Orinoco to north of the Sierra de Imataca, feeds the unsubdued natives of the Guaranis. When this people were more numerous, and lived in closer contiguity, not only did they support their huts on the cut trunks of palm trees, as pillars, on which rested a scaffolding forming the floor, but they also, it is said, twined from the leaf-stalks of the mauritia cords and mats, which, skillfully interwoven and suspended from when the Delta is overflowed, to live in the trees stem to stem, enabled them in the rainy season, like the apes. The floor of these raised cottages is partly covered with a coating of damp clay, on which the women make fires for household purposes, the flames appearing at night to be suspended high in air. The Guaranis still owe the preservation of their physical, and perhaps also their moral independence, to the half-submerged and rapid step, and to their elevated dwellings in marshy soil, over which they move with a light the trees-a habitation never likely to be chosen from motives of religious enthusiasm by an American Stylites. But the mauritia affords to the Guaranis not merely a secure dwelling-place, but also various kinds of food. Before the flower of the rich palm tree breaks through its tender sheath, and only at that period of vegetable metamorphosis, the pith of the stem of the tree contains a meal resembling sago, which, like the farina of the jatropho root, is dried in thin breadlike slices. The fermented juice of the tree forms the sweet, intoxicating palm wine of the Guaranis. The scaly fruits, which resemble in their appearance reddish fir cones, afford, like the plaintain and almost all tropical fruits, a different kind of nutriment according as they are eaten, after their saccharine substance is fully developed, or in their earlier or more farinaceous state. Thus, in the lowest stage of man's intellectual |