inues to run along to the enormous
length of three or four hundred feet, with short alternate branches at
every foot of its length. Thus, in the stormy ocean grows a plant
higher and of greater length than any vegetable production of the
surface of the earth, not excepting the banyan tree, which, as its
branches touch the ground, takes fresh root, and may be said to form a
separate tree. These marine plants resist the most powerful attacks of
the mightiest elements combined; the winds and the waves in vain combine
their forces against them; uniting their foliage on the bosom of the
waters, they laugh at the hurricane and defy its power. The leaves are
alternate; and when the wind ruffles the water, they flap over, one
after the other, with a mournful sound, doubly mournful to us from the
sad association of ideas and the loneliness of the island. The branches
or tendrils of these plants are so strong and buoyant, when several of
them happen to unite, that a boat cannot pass through them; I tried with
my feet what pressure they would bear, and I was convinced that, with a
pair of snow-shoes, a man might walk over them.

Captain Peters kindly invited me to go on shore with him. We landed
with much difficulty, and proceeded to the cottage of a man who had been
left there from choice; he resided with his family, and, in imitation of
another great personage on an island to the northward of him, styled
himself "Emperor." A detachment of British soldiers had been sent from
the Cape of Good Hope to take possession of this spot, but after a time
they were withdrawn.

His present imperial majesty had, at the time of my visit, a black
consort, and many snuff-coloured princes and princesses. He was in
other respects a perfect Robinson Crusoe: he had a few head of cattle,
and some pigs: these latter have greatly multiplied on the island.
Domestic fowls were numerous, and he had a large piece of ground planted
with potatoes, the only place south of the equator which produces them
in their native perfection. The land is rich and susceptible of great
improvement; and the soil is intersected with numerous running springs
over its surface. But it was impossible to look on this lonely spot
without recalling to mind the beautiful lines of Cowper--

"O Solitude, where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?"

Yet in this wild place alarms and even rebellion had found their way;
the emperor had but one subject, and t