to the simplicity of country life the seductions and vices of urban
society. Humboldt adds his important testimony to the noble army of
witnesses in all ages, and from all parts of the world, on this all
important subject.

"The Guamos are a race of Indians whom it is extremely difficult
to fix down to the soil. Like other wandering savages, they are
distinguished by their dirt, revengeful spirit, and fondness for
wandering. The greater part of them live by fishing and the chase,
in the plains often flooded by the Apure, the Meta, and the
Guaviare. The nature of those regions, their vast extent, and
entire want of any limit or distinguishing mark, seems to invite
their inhabitants to a wandering life. On entering, again, the
mountains which adjoin the cataracts of the Orinoco, you find
among the Piroas, the Macos, and the Macquiritares, milder
manners, a love of agriculture, and remarkable cleanliness in the
interior of their cabins. On the ridges of mountains, amidst
impenetrable forests, man is forced to fix himself, to clear and
cultivate a corner of the earth. That culture demands little care,
and is richly rewarded: while the life of a hunter is painful and
difficult. The Guamos of the Mission of Santa Barbara are kind and
hospitable; whenever we entered their cottages, they offered us
dried fish and water."--(Vol. vi. 219.)

No spectacle in nature can exceed, few equal, the sublimity and
magnificence of the scenery presented by the vast chain of mountains
which, under the name of Cordilleras, Andes, and Rocky Mountains,
traverses the whole continent of America, both north and south, in the
neighbourhood of the Pacific Ocean. Of this prodigious pile of rocks
and precipices, Humboldt, in another of his works, has given the
following admirable account:--

"The immense chain of the Andes, traversing its whole extent near
the Pacific Ocean, has stamped a character upon South American
nature which belongs to no other country. The peculiarity which
distinguishes the regions which belong to this immense chain, are
the successive plateaux, like so many huge natural terraces, which
rise one above another, before arriving at the great central
chain, where the highest summits are to be found. Such is the
elevation of some of these plains that they often exceed eight and
nine, and sometimes reach that of twelve thous