and silent they were as vaults; so I
returned to the first chamber, wondering what sightless host had spread the
materials for my repast, and my repose. I drew a chair to the table, and
examined what the viands were of which I was to partake. In truth it was a
death feast! The bread was blue and mouldy; the cheese lay a heap of dust.
I did not dare examine the other dishes; a troop of ants passed in a double
line across the table cloth; every utensil was covered with dust, with
cobwebs, and myriads of dead flies: these were objects each and all
betokening the fallaciousness of my expectations. Tears rushed into my
eyes; surely this was a wanton display of the power of the destroyer. What
had I done, that each sensitive nerve was thus to be anatomized? Yet why
complain more now than ever? This vacant cottage revealed no new sorrow--
the world was empty; mankind was dead--I knew it well--why quarrel
therefore with an acknowledged and stale truth? Yet, as I said, I had hoped
in the very heart of despair, so that every new impression of the hard-cut
reality on my soul brought with it a fresh pang, telling me the yet
unstudied lesson, that neither change of place nor time could bring
alleviation to my misery, but that, as I now was, I must continue, day
after day, month after month, year after year, while I lived. I hardly
dared conjecture what space of time that expression implied. It is true, I
was no longer in the first blush of manhood; neither had I declined far in
the vale of years--men have accounted mine the prime of life: I had just
entered my thirty-seventh year; every limb was as well knit, every
articulation as true, as when I had acted the shepherd on the hills of
Cumberland; and with these advantages I was to commence the train of
solitary life. Such were the reflections that ushered in my slumber on that
night.

The shelter, however, and less disturbed repose which I enjoyed, restored
me the following morning to a greater portion of health and strength, than
I had experienced since my fatal shipwreck. Among the stores I had
discovered on searching the cottage the preceding night, was a quantity of
dried grapes; these refreshed me in the morning, as I left my lodging and
proceeded towards a town which I discerned at no great distance. As far as
I could divine, it must have been Forli. I entered with pleasure its wide
and grassy streets. All, it is true, pictured the excess of desolation; yet
I loved to find mys