lands, as that through which I had now been travelling for more than three months, it is almost impossible to describe the pleasure which these romantic prospects again afforded me. Who can be insensible to the beauty of the verdant hill and valley, to the sublimity of the clouded mountain, the fearful precipice, or the torrent of the cataract. Even bald and moss-grown rocks, without the aid of sculpture, forcibly inspire us with that veneration which we justly owe to the high antiquity of nature, and which appears to arise no less from a solemn and intuitive reflection on their vast capacity for duration, contrasted with that transient scene in which we ourselves only appear to act a momentary part.
Many of the plants common to every mountainous and hilly region in the United States, again attracted my attention, and though no way peculiarly interesting, {107} serve to show the wide extension of the same species, under the favourable exposure of similar soil and peculiarity of surface. To me the most surprising feature in the vegetation of this country, existing under so low a latitude, was the total absence of all the usual evergreens, as well as of most of those plants belonging to the natural family of the heaths, the rhododendrons, and the magnolias; while, on the other hand, we have an abundance of the arborescent Leguminosæ, or trees which bear pods, similar to the forests of the tropical regions. Here also the Sapindus saponaria, or soap-berry of the West Indies, attains the magnitude of a tree.
On the banks of the river, near the precise limit of inundation, I met with a new species of Sysinbrium, besides the S. amphibium, so constant in its occurrence along the friable banks of all the western rivers. This plant, which
