On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    pass the objects on the shore ! Why is this ? Mark you not that the ocean stream is running like the race of Pentland past her bows , mocking the swift-heeled vessel , and robbing her of m ' ore than three-fourths of her speed . A scanty two knots is her progress over the ground , but heed it not , there is much to look on worthy the delay . Turn your gaze westward over the quarter . See you those lofty mountains in the distance , snow-covered like the land in which they are rooted ? The central one was in

    former ages a volcano , whence the Spanish discoverers called the island domain which it overlooks , the ' Land of Fire . ' Have you ever beheld a more wild and desolate region ? Yet , ere you answer , look eastward . Behold yon horrid towering crags , whereon not even the snow can find a secure Testing-place . There offers not foothold for a human being , and the sharp angular points , rising on every side from amSst the cheerless snow , and glistening in the faint rays of the halflBbzen sun , look as though even a bird would be impaled whicn might essay to perch . It is Staaten Land , an island so wild and forlorn , that none but a Dutchman , accustomed to purloin land from the ocean , could be found even to bestow a name upon it . Strong

    must have been the desire of possession , which could have induced human beings to lay claim to such a spot . The strait to which it forms the eastern border took its name from the navigator Le Maire . Look at the rocks on either hand , where the dashing surf has swept away the snowy crust . See the uncouth seals which here and there stretch their hairy length upon them , from

    time to time tumbling awkwardly into the sea , in unwieldy sport . Here and there , where a patch of sand skirts the rocks , or a slope of shingle meets the plash of the wave , the absurd looking penguins show their painted necks . Were it summer , and you essayed to land , the stupid animals would endeavour to drive vou

    from their territories with their outstretched flippers , and spoonlooking beaks . No slaughter you might make amongst them , would convince them of their folly . Had you slain an hundred , and but one were left , he would still press on to share the fate of his companions , as senselessly as a Russian soldier , and without any more apparent object .

    The craft is in mid-channel . Birds innumerable , of many varieties , are floating on the waters , skimming their surface , hovering in the air , and cleaving the blue space with their wings . Geese , ducks , divers , gannets , and penguins , rest on the wave , while the peterel and pintado , or Cape-pigeon , follow in the wake ,

    darting down each moment for their food . The turkey-buzzard hovers upwards , borne on his moveless pinions while wafted in the breeze , and the gallant ospray proudly cuts the air in his soaring flight , till his vigilant eye marks the track of the fish on the surface ,, and he stoops on his prey swiftly ns the lightning flash darting from on high . But , lo ! yonder comes the giant of the

    Untitled Article

    92 Beauty .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1833, page 92, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2608/page/24/