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PERU.

hundred feet. Steep barren hills rise like islands from the plain, which is divided by straight mud-walls into large green fields. In these scarcely a tree grows excepting a few wil lows, and an occasional clump of bananas and oranges. Lima,

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the "City of the Kings," must formerly have been a splendid town. The extraordinary number of churches gives it, even at the present day, a peculiar and striking character, especially when viewed from a short distance.

SOUTH PACIFIC.

One day I went out with some merchants to hunt in the immediate vicinity of the city. Our sport was very poor, but I had an opportunity of seeing the ruins of one of the ancient Indian villages, with its mound, like a natural hill, in the centre. The remains of houses, enclosures, irrigating streams, and burial-mounds, scattered over this plain, cannot fail to give one a high idea of the condition and number of the ancient population. When their earthenware, woollen clothes, utensils of elegant forms (cut out of the hardest rocks), tools of copper, ornaments of precious stones, palaces, and water works are considered, it is impossible not to respect the considerable advance made by them in the arts of civilization.

TAHITI.

A CORAL reef encircles the entire line of coast of Tahiti. Within the reef there is an expanse of smooth water, like that of a lake, where the canoes of the natives can ply with safety, and where ships anchor. The lowland, which comes down to the beach of coral-sand, is covered with the most beautiful productions of the intertrop ical regions. In the midst of bananas, orange, cocoa-nut, and bread-fruittrees, spots are cleared where yams, sweet potatoes, the sugar-cane and pineapple are cultivated. Even the brushwood is an imported fruit-tree, namely,

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FRUIT OF THE BREAD-FRUITTREE.

AUSTRALIA.

AVENUE OF PALMS IN THE BOTANIC

GARDENS AT RIO.

the guava, which from its abundance has become as noxious as a weed. In Brazil I have often admired the varied beauty of the bananas, palms, and orangetrees contrasted together; and here we also have the bread-fruit, conspicuous from its large, glossy, and deeply digitated leaf. The little winding paths, cool from the surrounding shade, led to the scattered houses, the owners of which everywhere gave us a cheerful and most hospitable reception. In the case of these beautiful woods, the knowledge of their high productiveness no doubt enters largely into the feeling of admiration.

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NEW SOUTH WALES.

ITs extreme uniformity is the most remarkable feature in the landscape of the greater part of New South Wales. Everywhere we have an open woodland, the ground being partially covered with a very thin pasture, with little ap

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