with her arduous toils, she laid aside her dripping garments,
bathed her beauteous form in the sea, and attired herself in dry
apparel.

Having partaken of some refreshment, she armed herself with weapons of
defense, and quitting the shore, entered upon that vast amphitheater of
verdure to which we have already slightly alluded. The woods were thick
and tangled; but though, when seen from the shore, they appeared to form
one dense, uninterrupted forest, yet they in reality only dotted the
surface of the islands with numerous detached patches of grove and
copse; and in the intervals were verdant plains or delicious valleys,
exhibiting not the slightest sign of agriculture, but interspersed with
shrubs and trees laden with fruits rich and tempting.

Nature had indeed profusely showered her bounties over that charming
isle; for the trees glowed with their blushing or golden produce, as if
gems were the fruitage of every bough.

Through one of the delicious valleys which Nisida explored, a streamlet,
smooth as a looking-glass, wound its way. To its sunny bank did the lady
repair; and the pebbly bed of the river was seen as plainly through the
limpid waters as an eyeball through a tear.

Though alone was Nisida in that vale, and though many bitter
reflections, deep regrets, and vague apprehensions crowded upon her
soul; yet the liveliness of the scene appeared to diminish the
intenseness of the feelings of utter solitude, and its soft influence
partially lulled the waves of her emotions. For never had mortal eyes
beheld finer fruit upon the trees, nor lovelier flowers upon the soil;
all life was rejoicing, from the grasshopper at her feet to the
feathered songsters in the myrtle, citron, and olive groves; and the
swan glided past to the music of the stream. Above, the heavens were
more clear than her own Italian clime, more blue than any color that
tinges the flowers of the earth.

She roved along the smiling bank which fringed the stream until the
setting sun dyed with the richest purple the rocky pinnacles in the
distance, and made the streamlet glow like a golden flood. And
Nisida--alone, in the radiance and glory of her own charms--alone amidst
all the radiance and glory of the charms of nature--the beauteous Nisida
appeared to be the queen of that Mediterranean isle. But whether it were
really an island or a portion of the three continents which hem in that
tideless ocean, the lady as yet knew not.

Warned by the