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Tyrant has sent to me for explanation; turn your of the Pacific. A young Indian, who usually eyes from the image of life to that of death. The discharges this important duty, swims in two days butterfly has left its former place and soars up-from Pomahuaco to Tomependa, carrying the few wards, the extinguished torch is reversed, the head of the youth has sunk, the spirit has fled to other spheres, and the vital force is dead. Now the youths and maidens joyfully join hands, the earthy substances resume their ancient rights; they are free from the chains that bound them, and follow impetuously after long restraint the impulse to union. Thus inert matter animated awhile by vital force passes through an innumerable diversity of forms, and perhaps in the same substance which once enshrined the spirit of Pythagoras, a poor worm may have enjoyed a momentary existence.-Vol. ii., pp. 255-257.

letters from Truxillo, which are intended for the province of Jaen de Bracamora. The letters are carefully placed in a large cotton handkerchief, which he winds round his head in the manner of a turban. He then descends the Rio de Chamaya, (the lower part of the Guancabamba,) and then the Amazons. When he reaches waterfalls, he quits the river and makes a circuit through the woods. In this fatiguing voyage the Indian sometimes throws one arm round a piece of a very light kind of wood, and he has sometimes the advantage of a swimming companion. They carry no provisions, as they are always sure of a hospitable reception in any of the scattered huts surrounded with fruit trees, which abound in the beautiful Huertas de Pucara and Cavico. Let

ters thus carried are seldom either wetted or lost and Humboldt mentions, that soon after his retur, from Mexico to Europe, he received letters from Tomependa, which had been bound on the brow of the swimming post. The "Correo que nada,' as he is called, returns by land by the difficul

route of the Paramo del Paredon. Several tribes of wild Indians, who reside on the banks of the Upper Amazons, are accustomed to travel" by

Humboldt had an "opportunity of seeing in this manner in the bed of the river the heads of 30 or 40 persons, (men, women, and children,) of the tribe of the Xibaros, on their arrival at Tomependa."

When the travellers approached the hot climate of the basin of the Amazons, they were delighted with the splendid orange trees, sweet and bitter, "Laden with many of the Huertas de Pucara.

The closing chapter of Baron Humboldt's work contains an account of the Plateau of Caxamarca, the ancient capital of the Inca Atahualpa, and describes the first view of the Pacific Ocean as seen from the crest of the Andes. After mentioning the Quina (or fever bark*) producing forests in the valleys of Loxa, and the alpine vegetation and mountain wildernesses of the Paramos, our author describes the gigantic remains of the ancient artificial roads of the Incas of Peru, which formed a line of communication through all the provinces of the empire, extending more than a thousand English miles. The road itself is 21 feet wide, and above a deep understructure was paved with well cut blocks of blackish trap por-swimming down the stream sociably in parties." phyry. Station-houses, of hewn stone, are built at nearly equal distances, forming a kind of caravanserai. In the pass called the Paramo del Assuay, the road rises to the height of 15,526 feet, almost equal to that of Mont Blanc. Across the wide and arid plains between the Pacific and the Andes, and also over the ridges of the Cordilleras, these two great Peruvian roads, or systems of roads, are covered with flat stones, or "sometimes even with cemented gravel, (MacadAmized.)" The roads crossed the rivers and ravines by three kinds of bridges, "viz., those of stone, wood, and rope, and there were also aqueducts for bringing water to the caravanserais and to the fortresses." As wheel-carriages were not then used upon roads, they were occasionally interrupted by long flights of steps, provided with resting-places at suitable intervals. Along with their grand artificial paths, the Peruvians possessed a highly improved postal system. These splendid remains of the Incas, however, have been wantonly destroyed, and Humboldt mentions that, in one day's journey, they were obliged to wade through the Rio de Guancabamba twenty-seven times, while they continually saw near them the remains of the high-built roads, with their caravanserais. In the lower part of the same river, which, with its many falls and rapids, runs into the Amazons, our author was amused with the singular contrivance of a "Swimming Post," for the conveyance of correspondence with the coast

The Cinchona Condaminia (officinalis.) This beautiful tree, though only six inches in diameter, often attains a height of sixty feet. The bark was introduced into Europe in 1632 or 1640.

thousands of their golden fruit. they attain a height of from 60 to 64 feet, and instead of rounded tops or crowns, they have aspiring branches like a laurel or bay tree.'

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Not far hence, (says Humboldt,) near the Ford of Cavico, we were surprised by a very unexpected sight. We saw a grove of small trees, only about 18 or 19 feet high, which, instead of green, had apparently perfectly red or rose-colored leaves. It was a new species of Bougainvillea, a genus first established by the elder Jussieu from a Brazilian specimen in Čommerson's herbarium. The trees were almost entirely without true leaves, as what we took for leaves at a distance proved to be thickly different in the purity and freshness of the color crowded bracteas. The appearance was altogether from the autumnal tints which, in many of our forest trees, adorn the woods of the temperate zone at the season of the fall of the leaf. often found here the Porlieria hygrometrica, which, by the closing of the leaflets of its finely pinnated foliage, foretells an impending change of weather, than any of the Mimosacea. It very rarely de and especially the approach of rain, much better ceived us.- -Vol. ii., pp. 279, 280.

We

As night was closing upon our travellers, when they were ascending the eastern declivity of the Cordilleras, they arrived at an elevated

plain where the argentiferous mountains of Gual- After leaving the sea, the travellers ascended gayoc, the chief locality of the celebrated Silver a height about 10,000 feet high, and were "struck Mines of Chota, afforded them a remarkable spec- with the sight of two grotesquely shaped portacle. The cerro of Gualgayoc, an isolated mass phyritic summits, Aroma and Cunturcaga, which of silicious rock, stands like an enchanted castle, consisted of five, six, or seven solid columns, separated by a deep ravine from the limestone some of them jointed, and from thirty-seven to mountains of Cormolatsche. It is traversed by forty-two feet high." Owing to the distribution innumerable veins of silver, and terminated on of the often converging series of columns of the the N. W. by a nearly perpendicular precipice. Cerro Aroma placed one above another, "it "Besides being perforated to its summit by many resembles a two-storied building, which, morehundred galleries driven in every direction, this over, is surmounted by a dome or cupola of nonmountain presents also natural openings in the columnar rock." mass of the silicious rock, through which the in- It had been the earliest wish of our author to tensely dark blue sky of those elevated regions is obtain a view of the Pacific from the crest of the visible to a spectator standing at the foot of the Andes. He had listened as a boy to the advenmountain. These openings are popularly called | turous expedition of Vasco Nunez de Balboa, the windows," and "similar ones were pointed out first European who beheld the eastern part of the to us in the trachytic walls of the volcano of Pin- Pacific Ocean, and he was now about to gratify chincha." this longing desire of his youth. When they had On their way to the ancient city of Caxamarca, reached the highest part of the mountain by the Humboldt and his companions had to cross a suc- Alto de Guangamarca, the heavens suddenly becession of Paramos at the height of about 10,000 came clear, and the western declivity of the Corfeet above the sea, before they reached the Pa- dilleras, covered with quartz blocks fourteen feet ramo de Yanaguanga, from which they looked high, and the plains as far as the seashore near down upon the fertile valley of Caxamarca, con- Truxillo, "lay beneath their eyes in astonishing taining in its oval area about 112 English square apparent proximity. We saw for the first time miles. The town stands almost as high as the the Pacific Ocean itself, and we saw it clearly. city of Quito, but being encircled by mountains, | * The joy it inspired was vividly it enjoys a far milder climate. The fort and pal- shared by my companions, Bonpland and Carlos ace of Atahualpa exist only in a few ruins. The Montufar," and the sight "was warm baths of Pultamarca, at which the Inca peculiarly impressive to one who like myself owed spent a part of the year, have a temperature of a part of the formation of his mind and character, 156° Fahrenheit, and are seen in the distance. and many of the directions which his wishes had The town is adorned with a few churches, a state assumed, to intercourse with (George Forster) one prison, and a municipal building, erected upon of the companions of Cook." part of the ruins of the palace. On the porphy- In the preceding analysis of the "Aspects of ritic rock upon which the palace stood, a shaft Nature," we have found it very difficult to do jushas been sunk which formerly led into subterra- tice either to the author or to ourselves as renean chambers, and to a gallery said to extend to viewers. Owing to the great length of the the other porphyritic dome of Santa Polonia. "annotations and additions," which extend to The room is yet shown where Atahualpa was more than twice the length of the original chapimprisoned for nine months from November, 1532, ters which form the text, we have been under the and the mark on the wall is still pointed out to necessity of incorporating the information conshow the height to which he offered to fill the room with gold in bars, plates, and vessels, if set free. In order to avoid being burnt alive, the Inca consented to be baptized by his fanatical persecutor, the Dominican monk, Vincente de Valverde. He was strangled publicly in the open air, and at the mass for the dead the brothers Pizarro were present in mourning habits. The population of Caxamarca did not, at the time of our author's visit, exceed seven or eight thousand inhabitants.

tained in both, partly in our own language, and partly in that of the author, and have therefore found it impossible to give such copious and continuous extracts as the reader might have desired. This difficulty, too, has been greatly increased by the admixture of scientific with popular details, and by the use of technical terms which the general reader will sometimes find it difficult to interpret. Regarding the work, however, as one of great value from its science, and great interest from its subject, and as possessing that peculiar charm of lan*It is with some reluctance that, in imitation of Hum-guage and of sentiment which we look for in vain boldt, we throw into the obscurity of a note, a specimen in similar productions, we cannot withhold the of court etiquette at the palace of the Incas. "In con- expression of our anxiety that the popular matter formity," says our author, "with a highly ancient court in the "annotations and additions" should be inceremonial, Atahualpa spat, not on the ground, but into

the hand of one of the principal ladies present ;"-" all," corporated with the original text, and the techsays Garcilaso, ou account of his majesty."- Vol. ii.,nical and parenthetic references in the text, either p. 314. When the possessors of a little brief authority thus degrade their office and their race, we feel that they converted into foot notes, or transferred to the have withdrawn themselves from the sphere of human annotations." We should thus have a work sympathies, and we almost forget the cruelties of the Spaniards when we find them perpetrated against bipeds truly popular, without losing any of its scientific like Atahualpa.

46

accuracy.

The translation of Mrs. Sabine is like her trans- | always strongly opposed. Mr. Cuthbert Southey lation of Kosmos, admirably executed. We are had taken orders before his father died, and never offended with the harshness of a foreign remains still where he then was, with the duties idiom, and we never discover that the author and and pittance of a hard-working curate. One the translator are different persons. would be tempted to ask if he had shown any marked incapacity of intellect or character, but that evidence has been some time before the world of his excellence in both. Mindful of the manner in which church patronage is distributed, we must plainly say of this neglect that it is the reverse of creditable to its authors. It is notorious that the matter was brought before the last ministry, and that among those who then refused a helping hand to lift Southey's son out of a shabby curacy, were men who had offered to raise Southey himself, while their party was yet profiting by his genius, to the empty rank of a baronet. Is it too late for their successors to redeem this reproach by an example of generous homage to the memory of a powerful and honorable opponent?

We have thus endeavored to give our readers some account of a work full of wisdom and knowledge, written by one of the most distinguished writers and philosophers of the present day, and well fitted to draw our attention to a subject with which every person ought to be familiar. To live upon a world so wonderfully made, without desiring to know its form, its structure, and its purpose to eat the ambrosia of its gardens, and drink the nectar of its vineyards, without inquiring where, or how, or why they grow-to toil for its gold and its silver, and to appropriate its coal and its iron, without studying their nature and their origin to tremble under its earthquakes, and stand aghast before its volcanoes, in ignorance of their locality, of their powers, and of their origin to see and handle the gigantic remains of vegetable and animal life, without understanding when and why they perished-to tread the mountain range, unconscious that it is sometimes composed wholly of the indestructible flinty relics of living creatures, which it requires the most powerful microscope to perceive-to neglect such pursuits as these, would indicate a mind destitute of the intellectual faculty, and unworthy of the life and reason with which we have been endowed. It is only the irreligious man that can blindly gaze upon the loveliness of material nature, without seeking to understand its phenomena and its laws. It is only the ignorant man that can depreciate the value of that true knowledge which is within the grasp of his divine reason; and it is only the presumptuous man who can prefer those speculative studies, before which the strongest intellect quails, and the weakest triumphs. "In wisdom hast Thou made them all," can be the language only of the wise; and it is to the wise only that the heavens can declare the glory of God, and that the firmament can show forth his handiwork. It is the geologist alone who has explored them, that can call upon the "depths of the earth to praise the Lord;" and he "who breaketh the cedars of Lebanon," who "shaketh the wilderness," who "divideth the flames of fire," who "causeth the hinds to calve," and "maketh bare the forest," has imperatively required it from his worshippers, "that in his temple every one should speak of his glory."

No one will question that such epithets are justly given to Southey, and that the respect and admiration of all who honor virtue and genius belong to him in his grave. Few men have written so much, and written so well. Few men have passed through a long life, almost always in the public eye, with a more honorable and unstained character, or purposes more free from blame. We may grieve that he so completely threw off the opinions with which he started in his ardent youth; but those were days when opinions of the most resolute men were shaken. Southey at least never forfeited his station or his title to esteem. He did not become a hack, or a party tool; nor did the dignity of literature ever suffer in his person.

This is hardly the time-with so brief a section of his life as yet before us-to speak of the various public claims of Southey. But some things we may say with little dread of dispute. His prose is of the best in the language. It is clear, vigorous, and manly; with no small prettinesses in it, but full and muscular as that of our older and stronger race of writers; and often sparkling with a current of quaint grave humor which is singularly fascinating. His larger poems, however judgments may differ concerning them, are at least written on solid principles, and with a sustained power of art. We are not very certain, indeed, if it might not be put as a good test of the pure love of poetry in any man, that he should like those Madocs and Rodericks and Kehamas and Joans of Arc. For a man may adore Wordsworth as a devotee to Wordsworth's system, and may be greedy for Lord Byron as for any other The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. of the stronger stimulants; but if he admires Edited by his son, the Rev. CHARLES CUTHBERT these poems of Southey, it is as efforts of unmixed SOUTHEY, M.A., Curate of Plumbland, Cumber- imagination-as a child might admire whose land. Six vols. Vol. I. Longman and Co. fancy is only to be touched by the wonderful and THE first remark upon the subject of this book beautiful; with the addition that he has a mind is suggested by its title-page. The professional to feel the great and elevating thoughts they career of the son of Robert Southey is likely to embody, and thoroughly to appreciate the simend where it began, unless he receives promotion plicity which is their groundwork. We take from that party in the state which his father Southey to be a real poet in the sense of Ariosto;

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From the Examiner.

VOL. XXII. 39

and as to his shorter poems, we apprehend that | and equality, was in reality a departure from the no difference of opinion is likely to exist, now or natural habits and disposition of his mind. His in any time to come. They are as fine as any- discontent with Godwin, his evident dislike of his thing in the language. His range of literary ways of thinking, which often breaks out in these pursuit was extraordinary, and his unwearied dil- early days, is proof to us that he was himself unigence recalled the nobler and severer days of prepared to pursue to their lawful (or unlawful) English study. issues those extreme opinions of which Godwin was the steady champion. Let us add, too, that to have written Wat Tyler, (which, curiously enough, is not mentioned in the volume before us, though it was certainly written in 1794,) is rather an evidence to us that Southey did not understand what a republican was, than any proof of his own republicanism. A man may be a republican, and conscientiously respect the rights of property: whereas that notorious production (which, it is always due to Southey's memory to state, owed its existence in print to a disgraceful fraud) is little more than a piece of wild declamation against all such rights.

This first volume of this biography occupies the period 1774-1798, conducting Southey to his twenty-fifth year. It records his early life in Bristol and its neighborhood; his childish companions, privations, and enjoyments; his career at school and at college; his days of doubt and disbelief, excluding him from the church; his speculative opinions, excluding him from his aunt Tyler's house and protection; his unsuccessful attempts to be a doctor, which his tastes forbade, to be a lawyer, which he abandoned for the same reason, and to get a small official employment, to which his republicanism was the impassable bar; his friendships with Grosvenor Bedford, Coleridge, Lovell, Burnet, and Charles Wynne (who gives solid proof of his friendship, as the volume closes, in a voluntary gift of 1601. a year;) his marriage and scheme of pantisocracy; his voyage to Lisbon with his uncle Hill, the chaplain of the embassy there; his various ardent and impossible aspirations; and his plans to support himself by lectures, epics, and tragedies, ending in an engagement to write songs for the Morning Post at a guinea a week. The volume leaves him living at a pretty little village near Bristol, loving his wife very much, his impracticable opinions considerably softened, publishing letters from Spain and Portugal, preparing Madoc, editing the Annual Anthology-in short, fairly embarked in those studies of literature which he continued to love sufficiently through life, to find in them a full indemnification for all life's chances and accidents.

Mr. Southey's materials, for that portion of his father's life which is contained in this volume, are two-fold. He has had placed at his disposal his father's letters to early friends, which, by a connecting thread of comment, he makes available as continuous narrative, throwing in his own reflections sparingly, and with the best taste; and he has availed himself of his father's own narrative of the first fifteen years of his life written thirty years ago, in a series of seventeen letters to his friend Mr. John May. This narrative is printed by itself at the commencement of the volume, and occupies 157 pages.

Nor

We do not think the language contains a more delightful piece of autobiography, rich as are its treasures in that style of composition, than these early passages of the life of Southey. It is full of the vividest traits of truth and character, expressed with manly unaffectedness. The recolParson Hill describes him best at the pantiso-lections begin as early as three years old, and we cratical period of his life. "He is a very good have the most perfect faith in their sincerity and scholar, of great reading, of an astonishing memory: when he speaks, he does it with fluency; with a great choice of words. He is perfectly correct in his behavior, of the most exemplary morals, and the best of hearts. In short, he has everything you would wish a young man to have, excepting common sense or prudence. Were his character different, or his abilities not so extraordinary, I should be the less concerned about him." There is much truth here; and the general impression we receive from these records of him is more favorable even to his consistency than most readers may be prepared to admit. We see that that absence of "common sense and prudence" of opinion does not naturally cohere with the general character of his intellect and tastes. Charges of inconsistency are seldom wise or just, and still more seldom are they generous. We believe in Southey's case (as in others) that he was thrown off his balance, at the critical period of mental development, by the enthusiasm awakened throughout Europe by the first French revolution, and that his exuberant zeal for liberty

exactness. His father, his mother, his aunts and
his uncles, the masters at the various schools he
went to, the boys who used to laugh at him for
his cleverness, and persecute him for his curly
hair, all start back into life at his bidding. W.
have before us a piece of the solid reality of Eng-
lish manners and society seventy years ago.
is the feeling with which the sketches are executed
unworthy of their graphic power. They have a
quaint, yet genial, humor, which is perfectly de-
lightful. In writing them, Southey seems to have
thrown himself so absolutely into those early
years, as to recover once more, in unison with his
man's intellect, the simplicity, intensity, good
nature, and impressibility of childhood.
reminded of the best passages of David Copper-
field; and Southey's Aunt Tyler is the very com-
panion picture of Dickens' Aunt Betsy Trotwood.

We are

We mean to have another article about this fascinating piece of autobiography, and shall conclude for the present with a few extracts taken almost at random. The reader will at once perceive how rich the original must be.

Here are a few of the characteristics of his aunt Tyler, in whose house most of his early years were passed.

a fair hand anything that was set before him, whether in writing or in print; but it was done letter by letter without understanding a single word. As to self-government he was entirely incompetent, so much so that I think he could hardly be considered responsible as a moral being for his actions; yet he had an excellent memory, an observing eye, and a sort of half-saved shrewdness which would have qualified him, had he been born two centuries earlier, to have worn motley, and figured with a cap and bells and a bauble in some baron's hall. Never did I meet with any man so stored with old saws and anecdotes gathered up in the narrow sphere wherein he moved. I still remember many of them, though he has been dead more than thirty years. The motto to Kehama, as the Greek reference, when the abbreviations are rightly used, may show, is one of my uncle William's sayings. When it was found impossible to make anything of him by education, he was left to himself, and passed more time in the kitchen than in the parlor, because he stood in fear of his step-father. There he learnt to chew tobacco and to drink.

Strange creature as he was, I think of him very often, often speak of him, quote some of his odd, apt sayings, and have that sort of feeling for his memory, that he is one of the persons whom I should wish to meet in the world to come.

When she went out, Miss Tyler's appearance and manners were those of a woman who had been bred in the best society and was equal to it; but if any stranger or visitor had caught her in her ordinary apparel, she would have been as much confused as Diana when Acteon came upon her bathing-place, and almost with as much reason, for she was always in a bed-gown and in rags. Most people, I suspect, have a weakness for old shoes; ease, and comfort, and one's own fireside, are connected with them; in fact, we never feel any regard for shoes till they attain to the privileges of age, and then they become almost as much a part of the wearer as his corns. This sort of feeling my aunt extended to old clothes of every kind; the older and the raggeder they grew, the more unwilling she was to cast them off. But she was scrupulously clean in them; indeed, the principle upon which her whole household economy was directed, was that of keeping the house clean, and taking more precautions against dust than would have been needful against the plague in an infected city. That the better rooms might be kept clean, she took possession of the kitchen, sending the servants to one which was underground; and in this little, dark, confined place, with a rough stone floor, and a skyAs a pendant to this picture, we must have that light, (for it must not be supposed that it was a best of the accomplished individual of whom uncle kitchen, which was always, as it was intended to William learnt to chew tobacco. The reader who be, a comfortable sitting-room; this was more like shares in any manner Chesterfield's dislike to that a scullery,) we always took our meals, and gener-contortion of visage which is consequent on a hearty ally lived. The best room was never opened but roar, must be warned off this anecdote. for company; except now and then on a fine day to be aired and dusted, if dust could be detected there. The man of whom he learnt the use, or rather In the other parlor I was allowed sometimes to read, the abuse, of tobacco, was a sottish servant, as igand she wrote her letters, for she had many corre- norant as a savage of anything which he ought to spondents; and we sat there sometimes in summer, have known; that is to say of everything which when a fire was not needed, for fire produced ashes, ought to have been taught him. My mother, when and ashes occasioned dust, and dust, visible or in- a very little girl, reproved him once for swearing. visible, was the plague of her life. I have seen "For shame, Thomas," she said, "you should not her order the teakettle to be emptied and refilled, say such naughty words! for shame! say your because some one had passed across the hearth prayers, Thomas!"-" No, Missey!" said the while it was on the fire preparing for her breakfast. poor wretch, "I shan't; I shan't say my prayers. She had indulged these humors till she had formed I never said my prayers in all my life, Missey; and for herself notions of uncleanness almost as irra- I shan't begin now." My uncle William (the tional and inconvenient as those of the Hindoos. Squire he was called in the family) provoked him She had a cup once buried for six weeks, to purify dangerously once. He was dozing beside the fire, it from the lips of one whom she accounted unclean; with his hat on, which, as is still the custom among all who were not her favorites were included in that the peasantry, (here in Cumberland, at least,) he class. A chair, in which an unclean person had always wore in the house. You, perhaps, are not sat, was put out in the garden to be aired; and I enough acquainted with the mode of chewing tonever saw her more annoyed than on one occasion bacco, to know that in vulgar life a quid commonly when a man, who called upon business, seated him- goes through two editions; and that after it has self in her own chair; how the cushion was ever been done with, it is taken out of the mouth, and again to be rendered fit for her use, she knew not! reserved for a second regale. My uncle William, On such occasions, her fine features assumed a char- who had learnt the whole process from Thomas, acter either fierce or tragic; her expressions were and always faithfully observed it, used to call it, in vehement even to irreverence; and her gesticula- its intermediate state, an old soldier. A sailor detions those of the deepest and wildest distress-posits, or, if there be such a word, (and if there is hands and eyes uplifted, as if she was in hopeless not, there ought to be,) re-posits it in his tobacco-box. misery, or in a paroxysm of mental anguish.

Uncle William was a not less notable person. William Tyler, the second brother, was a remarkable person. Owing to some defect in his faculties, so anomalous in its kind that I never heard of a similar case, he could never be taught to read; the letters he could tell separately, but was utterly incapable of combining them, and taking in their meaning by the eye. He could write, and copy in

I have heard my brother Tom say, that this practice occasioned a great dislike in the navy to the one and two pound notes; for when the men were paid in paper, the tobacco-box served them for purse or pocket-book in lack of anything better, and notes were often rendered illegible by the deep stain of a wet quid. Thomas' place for an old soldier between two campaigns, while he was napping and enjoying the narcotic effects of the first mastication, was the brim of his hat; from whence the squire,

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