The southern island, with the exception of a narrow strip along its northern shore, appears to be, in its interior, a mere chaos of moun tains, and the region of perpetual winter; but even here, the declivities that slope down towards the sea are clothed, in many places to the water’s edge, with gigantic and evergreen forests; and more protected nooks occasionally present themselves, overspread with the abun dance of a teeming vegetation, and not to be surpassed in loveliness by what the land has anywhere else to show. The bleakness of the western coast of this southern island indeed does not arise so much from its latitude as from the tempestuous north-west winds which seem so much to prevail in this part of the world, and to the whole force of which it is, from its position, exposed. The interior and eastern side of the northern island owe their fertility and their suitableness for the habitation of man principally to the intervention of a considerable extent of land, much of which is elevated, between them and the quarter from which these desolating gales blow. The more westerly portion of it seems only to be inhabited in places which are in a certain degree similarly defended by the surrounding high grounds. In these, as well as in the more populous districts to the east, the face of the country, generally speaking, offers to the eye a spread of luxuriant verdure, the freshness of which is preserved by continual