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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.
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Untitled Article
circles around their base , while , at their mid-height , marine plants are flourishing . Look to the right of them , where a slender thread of water trickles downwards from the fissure in the rock . What a lovely green spot it has formed around it , encircled by shrubs thickly studded with crimson blossoms ! Move the glass to the left . There is a thicket of aloes on the very face of the crag . How green and beautiful the thorny leaves appear ! Above them there is a patch of cactus . Mark the one which stands apart , lofty as a tree , and looking like a tree divested of its lateral branches . Were you nearer , you would behold it thickly set round with spines , long , hard , and wiry , which serve the women of the country for knitting-needles . Look now lower down , half-way between the aloe-patch and the ocean , more to the right . The white speck on that tabular rock is salt , formed
by the heat of the sun . When the northerly gales are on , the bounding surf dashes to that height , and thus makes a provision for the salt-gatherers : but it is a perilous trade they follow . Do you see a speck aloft in the air , which seems motionless , high above the cliffs ? It is a condor , looking out for his prey . Look , it grows larger . He has discovered something . He is sailing in a circle with outstretched wings , which seem to have no move *
ment ; round and round he floats , but with a gradual descent , like a slow spiral . Again he is fixed , and cautiously surveys the scene beneath him . Something has scared him , and now he soars away till he is aln > ost out of sight . Now he stoops down till within an hundred yards of the cliff , and again sweeps round in a broad circle . Once more he is fixed , and may be distinctly marked ; his neck is stretched out , and with the glass you may
distinguish his long crooked beak and bald head , rising out of a collar of white feathers , which project like a ruff at right angles from his neck . His claws are drawn up , and in his wings there is a tremulous motion ; at the ends of them thei ; e are feathers projecting like the sticks of a lady ' s fan . How very beautifully they play ! Now he is satisfied with his survey , and he stoops again . Mark him ! downwards he goes to yonder patch of yellow sund . What seeks he ? There is a young seal asleep beneath
the cliff . He shall sleep no more . The talons of the condor are in his back , and already are his eyes torn out with the beak : in madness the seal rolls in the sand , and his enemy meanwhile buffets him with his wings , and tears away his skin in fragments . Still he struggles , and has half reached the water ; but look ; another condor has descended , and yet another . They do not quarrel , but devour their living prey in concert . In an hour , the skeleton alone will be left to tell the tale .
The craft has shot past the bight , and is rounding a point where the northern gales have left rocks piled on rocks in horrible confusion . The eternal granite seems in its massy fragments to bid defiance to the ocean wear , She leaves them behind ,
Untitled Article
Beauty . 05
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1833, page 95, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2608/page/27/
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