I should like to draw a picture, though I may succeed but imperfectly, of the grand scenery amid which I passed my childhood's days. Far in the west rose upwards in the intense blue sky the snow-capped peaks of the Cordilleras, or Andes, of South America, with range beyond range of lofty mountains intervening, the more distant rugged and barren, the nearer clothed to their summits with trees, glittering cascades leaping down their side? from rock to rock; while here and there could be seen the openings of deep glens, at the bottom of which copious streams came rushing forth, forming the headwaters of the mighty Orinoco.