to find a passage through it. Whilst he was looking about for some
track or pathway that might be worn in any part of it, he saw a huge
lion couched under the side of it, who kept his eye upon him in the
same posture as when he watches for his prey. The Indian
immediately started back, whilst the lion rose with a spring, and
leaped towards him. Being wholly destitute of all other weapons, he
stooped down to take up a huge stone in his hand, but, to his
infinite surprise, grasped nothing, and found the supposed stone to
be only the apparition of one. If he was disappointed on this side,
he was as much pleased on the other, when he found the lion, which
had seized on his left shoulder, had no power to hurt him, and was
only the ghost of that ravenous creature which it appeared to be.
He no sooner got rid of his impotent enemy, but he marched up to the
wood, and, after having surveyed it for some time, endeavoured to
press into one part of it that was a little thinner than the rest,
when, again to his great surprise, he found the bushes made no
resistance, but that he walked through briars and brambles with the
same ease as through the open air, and, in short, that the whole
wood was nothing else but a wood of shades. He immediately
concluded that this huge thicket of thorns and brakes was designed
as a kind of fence or quickset hedge to the ghosts it inclosed, and
that probably their soft substances might be torn by these subtile
points and prickles, which were too weak to make any impressions in
flesh and blood. With this thought he resolved to travel through
this intricate wood, when by degrees he felt a gale of perfumes
breathing upon him, that grew stronger and sweeter in proportion as
he advanced. He had not proceeded much further, when he observed
the thorns and briers to end, and give place to a thousand beautiful
green trees, covered with blossoms of the finest scents and colours,
that formed a wilderness of sweets, and were a kind of lining to