The Region of the Amazon
Westward the course of empire takes its way,
The four first acts already past;
A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Time’s noblest offspring is the last.
Each year we open upon new prospects in an increasing ratio, and among those which now present themselves as calculated to develope fresh fields for adventure and for an extension of traffic, are the navigation, just consummated, of 1,200 miles of the River Murray, and the expedition that is commencing to explore the Amazon.—Times’ Commercial Retrospect of 1853.
Wide o’er his isles the branching Orinoque
Rolls a brown deluge; and the native drives
To dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees;
At once his dome, his robe, his food, and arms.
Swell’d by a thousand streams, impetuous hurl’d
From all the roaring Andes, huge descends
The mighty Orellana.
—Thomson.