e of
some power of which I was unconscious, than as the ardent desire of my
soul. What his feelings were whom I pursued I cannot know. Sometimes,
indeed, he left marks in writing on the barks of the trees or cut in
stone that guided me and instigated my fury. "My reign is not yet
over"--these words were legible in one of these inscriptions--"you
live, and my power is complete. Follow me; I seek the everlasting ices
of the north, where you will feel the misery of cold and frost, to
which I am impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow not
too tardily, a dead hare; eat and be refreshed. Come on, my enemy; we
have yet to wrestle for our lives, but many hard and miserable hours
must you endure until that period shall arrive."

Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee,
miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never will I give up my search
until he or I perish; and then with what ecstasy shall I join my
Elizabeth and my departed friends, who even now prepare for me the
reward of my tedious toil and horrible pilgrimage!

As I still pursued my journey to the northward, the snows thickened and
the cold increased in a degree almost too severe to support. The
peasants were shut up in their hovels, and only a few of the most hardy
ventured forth to seize the animals whom starvation had forced from
their hiding-places to seek for prey. The rivers were covered with
ice, and no fish could be procured; and thus I was cut off from my
chief article of maintenance. The triumph of my enemy increased with
the difficulty of my labours. One inscription that he left was in
these words: "Prepare! Your toils only begin; wrap yourself in furs
and provide food, for we shall soon enter upon a journey where your
sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred."

My courage and perseverance were invigorated by these scoffing words; I
resolved not to fail in my purpose, and calling on heaven to support
me, I continued with unabated fervour to traverse immense deserts,
until the ocean appeared at a distance and formed the utmost boundary
of the horizon. Oh! How unlike it was to the blue seasons of the
south! Covered with ice, it was only to be distinguished from land by
its superior wildness and ruggedness. The Greeks wept for joy when
they beheld the Mediterranean from the hills of Asia, and hailed with
rapture the boundary of their toils. I did not weep, but I knelt down
and with a full heart th