- Men,
Whose Very Signs And Expressions Are Less Intelligible To Us
Than Those Of The Domesticated Animals; Men, Who Do Not
Possess The Instinct Of Those Animals, Nor Yet Appear To Boast
Of Human Reason, Or At Least Of Arts Consequent On That
Reason.
I do not believe it is possible to describe or paint
the difference between savage and civilized man.
It is
the difference between a wild and tame animal: and part
of the interest in beholding a savage, is the same which
would lead every one to desire to see the lion in his desert,
the tiger tearing his prey in the jungle, or the rhinoceros
wandering over the wild plains of Africa.
Among the other most remarkable spectacles which we
have beheld, may be ranked, the Southern Cross, the cloud
of Magellan, and the other constellations of the southern
hemisphere - the water-spout - the glacier leading its blue
stream of ice, overhanging the sea in a bold precipice - a
lagoon-island raised by the reef-building corals - an active
volcano - and the overwhelming effects of a violent earthquake.
These latter phenomena, perhaps, possess for me a
peculiar interest, from their intimate connection with the
geological structure of the world. The earthquake, however,
must be to every one a most impressive event: the earth,
considered from our earliest childhood as the type of solidity,
has oscillated like a thin crust beneath our feet; and
in seeing the laboured works of man in a moment overthrown,
we feel the insignificance of his boasted power.
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