Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXV, No. 2, August 1849Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXV, No. 2, August 1849
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
The Condor is found in various parts of the vast mountain chain on the
western border of the American continent, but it is most common in Peru
and Chile. Its habitation is most frequently at an elevation of 10,000
or 15,000 feet above the level of the sea, and there these birds are
seen in groups of three or four, but never in large companies like the
true vultures. Some of the mountain peaks bear names which in the Indian
tongue mean Condor’s Look-out, Condor’s Roost and Condor’s Nest. Two of
them will attack a vicuna, a heifer or even a puma, and overcome it by
repeated strokes of their beaks and talons. When gorged, says Humboldt,
they sit sullen and sombre on the rocks; and when thus overloaded with
food they will suffer themselves to be driven before the hunter rather
than take wing. They do not attack men or even children, although it is
admitted that two of them would be a match for a powerful man without
weapons. Sir Francis Head gives an amusing account of a contest between
one of his Cornish miners and a gorged Condor, which lasted an hour, and
terminated in the escape of the bird.
* * * * *
EDITOR’S TABLE.
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
MY DEAR JEREMY.—I presume you are shaking the spray from your locks,
and are over head and ears in love with salt water, while I am among the
weeping willows in these days of hydrophobia, when water—that we cannot
get at—provokes a feeling of madness. You glory in a proprietorship
over which your plough passes, turning up soil that is all your own,
while the nodding grain, golden and pulpy, ripens in your absence for
your abundant granaries, while I cultivate this, my small patch, “a
tenant at will,” whose harvest of gleaning would be blown to the winds
without a painstaking care and watchfulness. You are the lord of acres,
while I wander around forbidden enclosures, and look upon many a Castle
of Indolence longing but for a yard of ground all my own, upon which to
plant a firm foot, to sound the challenge and cry—war! The very
utterness of poverty is grandeur and riches, compared to the feeling of
having the pent-up energies which have found a full outlet in
enterprise, growing fiery in inaction, and panting for room, continually
battling at the heart, and knocking in vain for freedom and exercise.
But if you have ever felt the utter insignificance of wealth and high
advantage combined with indolence and inactivity, and forever
do-nothingness, before the godlike attributes of persevering energy and
indomitable will, you have felt the pride of manhood in its full force
and power. You have reaped in anticipation the rewards of high courage,
of manly resolve, of personal industry and victory. You have enjoyed in
your day-dreams the full fruition of assured success—and awoke to hope
on, to resolve and to conquer. Consider me, my dear Jeremy, as winding
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