A spell of fascination hangs about the Amazon. Its wonders, known and unknown, have a marvellous attraction; and the perils encountered in its exploration give a throb of interest to its very name.
How terrible were the sufferings of Gonzalo Pizarro and his companions, who set forth in youth and vigor to explore the valley of the Amazon! How worn and haggard the survivors returned to Quito, leaving some of the daring cavaliers of Spain to bleach in death on the wild plain, or to moulder in the lonely glen! No river has sadder chronicles of suffering and danger than the Amazon. Still, the exploration, so hazardous, yet of such vast value, will go on. Many a hero in the great war with nature will follow the track of Herndon, the noble man as well as the brave explorer, who escaped the perils of the great river, only to sink, with his manly heart, into the great deep.
In science as in war, ranks after ranks may fall; but the living press on to fill the vacant places. The squadrons are ever full and eager for service. To search new lands through and through, or to drag old cities from the graves of centuries, men will advance as heroically as an army moves to the capture of Chapultepec. Not a flower can breathe forth its fragrance, though in marshes full of venomous serpents and of as deadly malaria, but science will count its leaves, and copy with unerring pencil the softest tints that stain them with varied bloom and beauty. Science will detect every kind of rock in the structure of the most defiant crag. Not a bird can chant or build its nest in the most leafy shade, but science will find the nest, describe every change of color on the feathers of the little singer, and set to music every tone that gushes from its tiny throat. Not a gem can repose safe from seizure, in the rocks, in the sand, or in the torrent. Not a star can twinkle in the abyss of night, but science will tell its rate of light, and describe its silent and mysterious orbit. Torrid heat, the earthquake, the tornado, the pestilence, mountains of ice, craters of flame—science will dare them all, to know one more law of nature. God speed the daring of science, if only her votaries will not place the law in the place of Him who made both it and the works which it was commissioned to guide. Science, when she has found the highest and the most comprehensive law of nature, has not touched Deity itself; she has but touched the hem of the garment of the Great Lawgiver.
One veteran of science, Alexander von Humboldt, has yielded to the great law of humanity, as inexorable as any that he found in nature. His researches in South America, though mainly confined to the valley of the Oronoco, were most thorough, and his array of facts and observations are of inestimable value. Yet, Humboldt searched into nature with the coldness of the anatomist, content with examining its material structure, rather than with the zeal of one who seeks images of Divine power impressed alike on solid rocks and gliding streams. Science, however rigid, would not have restrained the ardor of homage to the Author of creative energy and grandeur, bursting forth irrepressibly in scenes where angels would have adored the Great First Cause, and where man can do no less.
Humboldt's fame as an observer is founded on a rock which no mortal power can shake. He lacked the reverential insight into the higher and deeper powers of nature, but, so far as his mental eyes saw, he described surely and vividly the manifestations of those powers. He was an observer of wonderful skill in the outer courts of nature, though he seemed either not to seek or to be bewildered in seeking her interior shrine. He exemplified rather the talent than the genius of discovery, the patient sagacity which accumulates materials, rather than the fervid enthusiasm which traces the stream of nature's action to its spring, the great Creative Will. Yet, the very title of Humboldt's great work, the concentrated fruit of a life of toil, 'Cosmos,' meaning beauty and order, and, then, the visible world, as illustrating both, seems to show a gleam of feeling above the spirit of material research. His warmest admirer could have respecting him no worthier hope than that he, who has left the scene of earthly beauty which he so long and diligently studied, may have had the joy to discern, in the sphere of celestial order, the Cosmos of the skies, higher and deeper truths than external nature can teach.
An American artist, Church, has portrayed with great force and beauty some portions of the inspiring scenery of the Andes. Church's pictures are avowedly compositions, and not transcripts of actual views; yet, they are not more remarkable for ideal beauty than for truthfulness to nature. Although no real scenes among the Andes correspond to his painting, yet the glorious characteristics of the Andes are seen in every line, in every color, in all the strange lights and shadows of his paintings. Imagination, which sees at once the powers and proportions of things, is, when joined to a feeling heart, the surest guide to him who would describe natural truth, whether of the souls of men or of material forms. The realists of art may not be so well satisfied with a composition, as with the delineation, line by line, and point by point, of a scene in nature; yet the more comprehensive critic will own that universality will gain by the composition far more than local identity can lose. By his imaginative skill, Church has portrayed in two or three pictures those characteristics of scenery which, to be faithfully delineated in copies from actual views, would require a hundred paintings. This is alike his best defence and his highest praise.
In recalling my own observations among these noble mountains, and in striving to express them in language, I feel how much higher is the vantage ground of the painter. One may examine for hours the canvas, until every scene is fixed on the memory as on the canvas itself. Yet I will endeavor to give a general view of the scenery of the stupendous Andes—stupendous truly, yet among those mountains are scenes of such quiet beauty as to touch the heart as tenderly as softest music.
Scarcely a hundred miles from the Pacific Ocean arise some of the highest peaks of the Andes, yet the way upward is much longer. From the coast, or from the decks of ships sailing by it, may be seen, in clear weather, some of the peaks of the mountains. On the shores, hazes and mists often temper the tropical sun and obscure distant objects; but, at early morning and evening, sometimes the great snowy dome of Chimborazo may be seen afar, towering in majesty above the tropical verdure between its base and the ocean. It looks as if invading the heavens with its colossal form; and at such times it wears a vesture of glory. A few years ago, in New England, of a clear night in the depth of winter, an aurora of the north reddened the whole sky; and the earth beneath, covered with snow, was as red as the sky above. Imagine such an aurora to fall upon the snowy summit of a mountain four miles high, and you may conceive how attractive is the flush of beauty upon the brow of Chimborazo at sunrise and at sunset.
Turn from the broad Pacific, as its long waves glance in the sun; and, as the morning tide washes up the tropical rivers, go with it along one of them, a part of the way, perhaps, in a sailing vessel or a steamer, but the rest in a light canoe. Tropical shrubbery and forests line the banks of the stream. New forms and modes of life impress the traveller from the temperate zone. The scenery of the tropics, so long the wonder of the imagination, now expands in wild luxuriance before the sight. When you have gone as far as you can along the winding river, waiting, perhaps, for hours, here and there upon the bank, in some rude cabin, or under the shade of some broad fragrant tree, for the returning tide from the ocean to bear you swiftly on; disembark upon a strange soil, and prepare to pursue your journey by mules or horses.
You reach the forests, and pierce their dark recesses by narrow paths, mere winding threads of road. Great clouds of foliage press around you, and, at the slightest breeze, thrill with that murmur of myriads of trees, which is so full of mystery and awe; for there, the very forests, unbroken and unbounded, seem audibly to breathe together with mystical accord, and to blend low quivering tones with the grand chorus which swells daily upward from vales and mountains, seas and shores.