,
embedded amidst the vegetation, buildings that must surely be the homes
of men. I could even discover, though far off, forms that appeared to
me human moving amidst the landscape. As I paused to gaze, I saw to
the right, gliding quickly through the air, what appeared a small
boat, impelled by sails shaped like wings. It soon passed out of sight,
descending amidst the shades of a forest. Right above me there was no
sky, but only a cavernous roof. This roof grew higher and higher at the
distance of the landscapes beyond, till it became imperceptible, as an
atmosphere of haze formed itself beneath.

Continuing my walk, I started,--from a bush that resembled a great
tangle of sea-weeds, interspersed with fern-like shrubs and plants of
large leafage shaped like that of the aloe or prickly-pear,--a curious
animal about the size and shape of a deer. But as, after bounding away
a few paces, it turned round and gazed at me inquisitively, I perceived
that it was not like any species of deer now extant above the earth,
but it brought instantly to my recollection a plaster cast I had seen
in some museum of a variety of the elk stag, said to have existed before
the Deluge. The creature seemed tame enough, and, after inspecting me a
moment or two, began to graze on the singular herbiage around undismayed
and careless.

Chapter IV.

I now came in full sight of the building. Yes, it had been made by
hands, and hollowed partly out of a great rock. I should have supposed
it at the first glance to have been of the earliest form of Egyptian
architecture. It was fronted by huge columns, tapering upward from
massive plinths, and with capitals that, as I came nearer, I perceived
to be more ornamental and more fantastically graceful that Egyptian
architecture allows. As the Corinthian capital mimics the leaf of the
acanthus, so the capitals of these columns imitated the foliage of the
vegetation neighbouring them, some aloe-like, some fern-like. And now
there came out of this building a form--human;--was it human? It stood
on the broad way and looked around, beheld me and approached. It
came within a few yards of me, and at the sight and presence of it an
indescribable awe and tremor seized me, rooting my feet to the ground.
It reminded me of symbolical images of Genius or Demon that are seen on
Etruscan vases or limned on the walls of Eastern sepulchres--images that
borrow the outlines of man, and are yet of another race. It was ta