THERE are few objects around which clusters so deep an interest, both for the eye and heart, as a cape from the sea. Thither, the fond looks of the outward-bound wanderer to other climes, are turned through the springing drops of affection; and the bosom thrills and trembles with emotion as the faint blue outline, growing every hour less and less rugged to the sight, sinks at last below the horizon, leaving the yet gazing traveller to say, in the despondency of the To the homeward-bound, how sweet the opening view of some bold headland, which fronts the wave, like a barrier guarding his native shore! Behind that towering eminence, the sunlight is playing upon the landscapes of his youth; the friends of that golden age are by the hearth of home; fond eyes and gentle greetings await his coming; and the thought of meeting them again, after his long sojourn on foreign strands, comes to his heart like the breath and fragrance of summer, "As when to those who sail Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past Mozambique, off at sea, south-east winds blow Of Araby the blest." By none can these feelings be appreciated, but by those who have "gone down in ships upon the great waters of the sea." They have passed in safety over scenes of peril, and crossed the track where many a stately argosy has sunk among the caverns of the deep; and as the dimly-descried pinnacles of their native land appear, they review their voyage with that feeling of delight which suspense removed and hope assured, bring so warmly to the heart. So BYRON felt, when he sung, as he neared the shore of Greece "Pass we the long, unvarying course, the track The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind, As breezes rise and fall, and billows swell, Till on some jocund morn-lo, land! and all is well." The Cape here depicted, with all the beauty and finish of the engraver's art, rises into the sky, in the vicinity of Panamgoody; and is spoken of by those who have been i' the Indies twice," as a magnificent spectacle. "The peak of this mountain," says an intelligent tourist in the East, “overlooks a beautiful and extensive tract of country on one side, and the mighty waste of waters on the other. The ascent towards the summit is so precipitous, that no one has ever succeeded in surmounting it. On the eastern side the land is flat and in a state of tolerably good cultivation, while on the western it is mountainous and almost covered with jungle. The cape is frequently surrounded by a broad belt of clouds towards the top, and rises above this delicate drapery with a bold sharp outline, looking as if it were poised in mid-air by some invisible agency, its grand cone towering in quiet relief against a brilliant sky, and realizing the sublime description of the poet: 66 "As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, It is a remarkable coincidence, that the highest part of this celebrated promontory is within a few feet the same as the Table Land at the Cape of Good Hope, the one being the most southern point of the Indian peninsula, the other the southern extremity of the African conti nent. The highest point of the promontory is some miles from the sea, the land gradually subsiding until it runs in a low headland into the ocean. "The scenery from Cape Comorin through the Tinevelly and Dindigul districts, is superior perhaps to any on the Indian peninsula, independently of the beautifully varied forms of the mountains, which are almost covered with wood of the most stupendous growth. The smaller hills which skirt the plain are here and there graced with some exquisite specimens of art in the shape of temples, and choultries are here just as numerous as they are higher up the coast. Throughout this neighbourhood Nature exhibits herself on a vast scale. Elephants abound in the mighty forests, where trees of immense bulk rise from their dark recesses to the extraordinary height of from a hundred and fifty to two hundred feet, nearly three times the stature of the English oak. They are stately and grand beyond conception." |