ath this brilliant exterior death was concealed. But the air
of these climates had so enervating an influence that man, absorbed by
present enjoyment, was rendered regardless of the future.

[Footnote e: Malte Brun tells us (vol. v. p. 726) that the water of the
Caribbean Sea is so transparent that corals and fish are discernible at
a depth of sixty fathoms. The ship seemed to float in air, the navigator
became giddy as his eye penetrated through the crystal flood, and beheld
submarine gardens, or beds of shells, or gilded fishes gliding among
tufts and thickets of seaweed.]

[Footnote f: See Appendix, B.]

North America appeared under a very different aspect; there everything
was grave, serious, and solemn: it seemed created to be the domain of
intelligence, as the South was that of sensual delight. A turbulent and
foggy ocean washed its shores. It was girt round by a belt of granite
rocks, or by wide tracts of sand. The foliage of its woods was dark and
gloomy, for they were composed of firs, larches, evergreen oaks, wild
olive-trees, and laurels. Beyond this outer belt lay the thick shades
of the central forest, where the largest trees which are produced in
the two hemispheres grow side by side. The plane, the catalpa, the
sugar-maple, and the Virginian poplar mingled their branches with those
of the oak, the beech, and the lime. In these, as in the forests of the
Old World, destruction was perpetually going on. The ruins of vegetation
were heaped upon each other; but there was no laboring hand to remove
them, and their decay was not rapid enough to make room for the
continual work of reproduction. Climbing plants, grasses, and other
herbs forced their way through the mass of dying trees; they crept along
their bending trunks, found nourishment in their dusty cavities, and
a passage beneath the lifeless bark. Thus decay gave its assistance to
life, and their respective productions were mingled together. The depths
of these forests were gloomy and obscure, and a thousand rivulets,
undirected in their course by human industry, preserved in them a
constant moisture. It was rare to meet with flowers, wild fruits, or
birds beneath their shades. The fall of a tree overthrown by age,
the rushing torrent of a cataract, the lowing of the buffalo, and the
howling of the wind were the only sounds which broke the silence of
nature.

To the east of the great river, the woods almost disappeared; in their
stead were seen prairi