og had seemed to suffocate me, here it was exhilarating; bracing a
man's steps so that he seemed to walk on air; exalting him so that his
mind was on fire and his head full of the wildest notions. No coward
that ever lived would have known a moment's fear under the stimulation
of that clear blue vapour. I bear witness, and there are others to bear
witness with me, that a whole world of strange figures and wonderful
places opened up to our eyes when we began to push ashore and to leave
the sandy beach behind us. And that was but the beginning of it, for
more fearful things were to follow after.

I will try to describe for you both the place and the scene, that you
may realize my sensation, and follow me truly in this, my third journey
to Ken's Island. Imagine, if you can, an undulating stretch of lush
grass and pasture-land, a glorious meadow flooded with the clear, cold
light; arched over with a heaven of stars; bordered about by heavy
woods; dipping to the sea on two sides and extending shimmering sands
to the breaking swell on the third. Say that a hot blue fog quivers in
the air above this meadow-land, and is breathed in at every breath you
take. Conceive a mind so played upon by this vapour that the meadows
and the woods beyond the meadows are gradually lost to view, and a
wonder-world quickly takes their place. Do this, and you may follow me
more surely to a phantom city of majestic temples hewn out of a golden
rock and lifting upward until they seem to touch the very skies; you
may peer with me into abysses so profound that no eye can fathom their
jewelled depths; you may pass up before walls built wholly of gems most
precious; you may sleep in woods beneath trees silvered over with
light; search countless valleys rich in unknown flowers. And the city
is peopled with an unnumbered multitude of moving figures, the sensuous
figures of young girls all glittering in gold and jewels; the shapes of
an army of giants in blackest armour; and there are animals that no eye
has seen before, and beasts more terrible than the brain can conceive.

Say, too, that this deadly vapour of the island so stimulates the
faculties that earth no longer binds a man nor heaven imprisons him.
Say that he can rise above the spheres to unknown worlds, can, span the
seas, and bridge the mountains. Depict him, as it were, throwing off
his human shape and seeing the abodes of men so far below him, so puny,
so infinitely small that he begins to r