d with
delightful odors, and a pleasant breeze tempered the sweet warm air.

As here was a delightful climate, fruit in abundance, and scenery
soul-exalting, of whose glory one could never grow tired, I felt rather
pleased with the thought "Why not stay here? Why not remain in this
beautiful place as long as circumstances will permit?"

All nature seemed here so lovely that I resolved to wander no further.

While gazing around at all this grandeur and beauty, my attention was
particularly drawn to a group of lofty peaks which rose in the midst of
this smiling garden. The sides of the towering eminences seemed almost
perpendicular, and they were about three or four thousand feet high.

I soon gave up all hope of ever reaching the top, but in examining the
rock I found at its base a great cavern, so high and wide that a very
large building might have stood in it, with plenty of room to spare.
The sides and roof sparkled with crystals of all hues, and were
singularly and picturesquely variegated with differently colored veins
running through them; and, as the cave opened toward the east, with a
large clear space in front of it, nothing could have been more splendid
than when the morning sun shone full into the vast chamber and lighted
it up with dazzling brilliancy.

In that chamber I made my humble home.

Near one of the streams that flowed over the precipice into the lake,
grew several species of very tall grasses, with great bushy heads of
long silky fibers that adorned and protected their flowers and fruit.
Of these fine strong threads I made a hammock, which I suspended from a
strong frame bound together with these tough fibers, placing it a few
feet back from the mouth of the cavern. Thus, I had an excellent bed,
and if I should need covering there were plenty of palm-leaves at hand
for the purpose. But in that torrid climate there was little need of
extra protection; the air of the cavern was of just that delightful
coolness which refreshes but does not chill.

Now, imagine me waking in the morning just as the dawn tinted the rosy
east, refreshed with sweet slumbers and rejoicing to behold the light,
rocking myself gently in my pretty hammock, and hailing the uprising
sun with a merry song,--and would you not suppose there was one happy
man in this great world?

While the day was yet young I would take a bath in the clear, soft
water of a little stream near by. Then, when all was sparkling and
bright in my