As I passed from this interesting spot, I was attracted by a merry train of riders, whose loud and cheerful voices resounded along the road, seeming to mock the sacred silence of the place I had so lately left. As the gay array of youth and beauty dashed away from my sight, with foamy bridle and gory spur, I could not but be reminded of the close juxta-position on earth, of joy and sorrow, life and death.
Onward, onward! over winding streams, that glittered like twisting serpents on the green surface of the earth, over the broad bay, that rested in smooth and glassy repose in the arms of the far-extending shore, and over the dashing billows of the ocean, my route continued. Birds of the briny sea, whose strong wings had borne them safely and surely from the frosty atmosphere that sparkles around the pole, or the ice-cold waters of some far-away lagoon, now darted around me with discordant cry and affrighted pinion. In those hovering flocks I discerned the duck, the goose, the coot, the loon, the curlew, the green-winged teal, the dusky duck, the sooty tern, the yellow-winged gadwale, the golden eye, and the gaudy mallard, proudly vain of that lovely plumage, whose intense hues rival the glory of the breaking dawn, the autumnal sunset, or the intermingled dyes which tinge the stripes of the showery bow. On an iron-bound promontory, whose jutting crags waved an eternal strife with the rolling billows, I saw the thick-scattered cottages of wealth and taste, seeming no bigger than the nest, which the tropical bird constructs in the sands of the desert, while around, on the tumbling expanse of waters, were glancing a thousand receding and approaching sails, bearing the riches of the orient or the occident, from shore to shore.
Downward, downward! A thrill of horror shot through my veins, as I felt that the rough ocean breeze had shivered my silken vessel to shreds and tatters, and that I was falling with the speed of lightning, through the hollow abyss of the air, into the sea. The jaws of the fretting ocean, gnashing their white teeth in anger, seemed to gape open to devour me, and the black rocks uplifted their jagged spears, to impale my devoted body! But my time had not yet come. A gentle tap on the shoulder aroused me from the profound reverie in which I had been plunged, and I was very glad to recognize, in the visitor who had broken the spell, my good friend Durant, who called to invite me to attend his grand ascension, the following day.