"[...] this incomparable King of the Mountains, Atlas towering above us. Behold how he rises up, how he rears himself, and how his proud head [raises] and turns towards the ever-feared and ever-hostile Europe, in an act of recognition and spying: and how he spreads his immense back towards that jealous frontier of his Africa, in the act of securing and defending it with his shoulders. However much we see of him, he is neither the whole of Atlas, nor more than that; but only the summit. (from “'L'Atlante,”' p. 79)"