as though too heavy to ascend, and loses itself in the thin
air, so inspiring to all who have courage to leave their beds and enjoy
it. The champa tree forms a beautiful object in this jungle. It may be
recognized immediately from the surrounding scenery. It has always been
a favourite with me. I suppose most persons, at times, have been
unaccountably attracted by an object comparatively trifling in itself.
There are also particular seasons, when the mind is susceptible of
peculiar impressions, and the moments of happy, careless youth, rush
upon the imagination with a thousand tender feelings. There are few that
do not recollect with what pleasure they have grasped a bunch of wild
flowers, when, in the days of their childhood, the languor of a
lingering fever has prevented them for some weary months from enjoying
that chief of all the pleasures of a robust English boy, a ramble
through the fields, where every tree, and bush, and hillock, and
blossom, are endeared to him, because, next to a mother's caresses, they
were the first things in the world upon which he opened his eyes, and,
doubtless, the first which gave him those indescribable feelings of
fairy pleasure, which even in his dreams were excited; while the
coloured clouds of heaven, the golden sunshine of a landscape, the fresh
nosegay of dog-roses and early daisies, and the sounds of busy
whispering trees and tinkling brooks presented to the sleeping child all
the pure pleasure of his waking moments. And who is there here that does
not sometimes recal some of those feelings which were his solace perhaps
thirty years ago? Should I be wrong, were I to say that even, at his
desk, amid all the excitements and anxieties of commercial pursuits, the
weary Calcutta merchant has been lulled into a sort of pensive
reminiscence of the past, and, with his pen placed between his lips and
his fevered forehead leaning upon his hand, has felt his heart bound at
some vivid picture rising upon his imagination. The forms of a fond
mother, and an almost angel-looking sister, have been so strongly
conjured up with the scenes of his boyish days, that the pen has been
unceremoniously dashed to the ground, and 'I will go home' was the sigh
that heaved from a bosom full of kindness and English feeling; while, as
the dream vanished, plain truth told its tale, and the man of commerce
is still to be seen at his desk, pale, and getting into years and
perhaps less desirous than ever of winding