ed forward with no little interest to a short repose
at the halting-place between India and Europe. But when I saw its blue
mass heaving from the ocean, the usual excitement attendant on the
cry of "Land!" was lost in the absorbing feeling, that there Napoleon
Bonaparte died and was buried. The lonely rock rose in solitary
barrenness, a bleak and mournful monument of some rude caprice of
Nature, which has thrown it out to stand in cheerless desolation amidst
the broad waters of the Atlantic. The day I passed there was devoted to
the place where the captive wore away the weary and troubled years of
his imprisonment, and to the little spot which he himself selected when
anticipating the denial of his last wish,--now fully answered,--"that
his ashes might repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of that
French people whom he had so much loved."

There was nothing in or about the house to remind one of its late
occupant. It was used as a granary. The apartments were filled with
straw; a machine for threshing or winnowing was in the parlor; and the
room where he died was now converted into a stable, a horse standing
where his bed had been. The position was naked and comfortless, being
on the summit of a hill, perpetually swept by the trade-winds, which
suffered no living thing to stand, except a few straggling, bare,
shadeless trees, which contributed to the disconsolate character of the
landscape. The grave was in a quiet little valley. It was covered by
three plain slabs of stone, closely surrounded by an iron railing; a
low wooden paling extended a small distance around; and the whole was
overhung by three decaying willows. The appearance of the place was
plain and appropriate. Nothing was wanting to its unadorned and
affecting simplicity. Ornament could not have increased its beauty, nor
inscription have added to its solemnity.

The mighty conqueror slept in the territory of his most inveterate foes;
but the path to his tomb was reverently trodden, and those who had stood
opposed to him in life forgot that there had been enmity between them.
Death had extinguished hostility; and the pilgrims who visited his
resting-place spoke kindly of his memory, and, hoarding some little
token, bore it to their distant homes to be prized by their posterity as
having been gathered at his grave.

The dome of the Invalides now rises over his remains; his statue again
caps the column that commemorates his exploits; and one of his