nature, that were sitting, closely veiled, in that mysterious
obscurity. I shuddered as I felt that if my eyes could pierce that
mist, or if it should lift and roll away, I should see upon a silent
shore low ranges of lonely hills, or mystic figures and huge temples
trampled out of history by time.

This, too, we left. There was a rustling of distant palms, the
indistinct roar of beasts, and the hiss of serpents. Then all was
still again. Only at times the remote sigh of the weary sea, moaning
around desolate isles undiscovered; and the howl of winds that had
never wafted human voices, but had rung endless changes upon the sound
of dashing waters, made the voyage more appalling and the figures
around me more fearful.

As the ship plunged on through all the varying zones, as climate and
country drifted behind us, unseen in the gray mist, but each, in turn,
making that quaint craft England or Italy, Africa and the Southern
seas, I ventured to steal a glance at the motley crew, to see what
impression this wild career produced upon them.

They sat about the deck in a hundred listless postures. Some leaned
idly over the bulwarks, and looked wistfully away from the ship, as if
they fancied they saw all that I inferred but could not see. As the
perfume, and sound, and climate changed, I could see many a longing
eye sadden and grow moist, and as the chime of bells echoed distinctly
like the airy syllables of names, and, as it were, made pictures in
music upon the minds of those quaint mariners--then dry lips moved,
perhaps to name a name, perhaps to breathe a prayer. Others sat upon
the deck, vacantly smoking pipes that required no refilling, but had
an immortality of weed and fire. The more they smoked the more