cans display an industry and perseverance in their commercial
undertakings, which is not exceeded even by the English: they are to be
met with upon every sea, and in the most unfrequented regions,
disdaining nothing, however trivial, from which they can derive profit.
On the north-west coast of America, they barter with the savages all
kinds of European trifles for the beautiful skin of the sea-otter, which
they sell for a high price in China. Many of their vessels take in
cargoes of sandal-wood in the South-Sea Islands, for which they also
find a good market in China, where it is in great estimation; others
pursue the spermaceti whale in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn, and carry
on an important traffic in this article.

On the morning of the 23rd of December, we saw in the distance the
snow-covered points of the mountains in the dreaded Staten-land. A fresh
breeze carried us so near to this inhospitable and desolate island, that
we could plainly distinguish the objects on it, even without a
telescope. What a contrast to the beauty of Brazil! There nature seems
inexhaustible in her splendour and variety; here she has sparingly
allowed a thin clothing of moss to the lofty masses of black rock.
Seldom do the sun's rays lighten this or the neighbouring island of
Terra del Fuego. Vegetation is so blasted by the perpetual cold and
fogs, that a few miserable stunted trees can scarcely find subsistence
at the foot of the mountains. The sea-birds avoid these barren shores;
the very insects disdain them; the dog, the faithful companion of man,
and man himself, the inhabitant of every climate under heaven, can
alone exist in this; but the warmth of the sun is essential to the
development of his faculties. Here he is a mere animal, and of
disgusting appearance; small, ill-shaped, with dirty copper-coloured
skin, black bristly hair, and devoid of beard. He inhabits a miserable
hut made of boughs covered with dried rushes, and appeases his hunger on
the raw and often half-decayed flesh of the sea animals, whose skins
furnish him with a scanty covering: this is the utmost extent to which
his invention has yet led him, in providing defences against the
roughness of the climate; and the dreariness of his existence is still
unenlivened by any notion of amusement. Yet is this benumbing country
situated in the same degree of southern latitude in which in the
northern lies my beloved Esthonia, where every comfort of civilization
may be enj