ost of the Kannakas had come away. Soon after the
Woolstons had left, the especial friends of humanity, and the almost
exclusive lovers of the "people" having begun to oppress them by
exacting more work than was usual, and forgetting to pay for it. These
men could say but little about the condition of the colony beyond this
fact. Not only they, but all in the group, however, could render some
account of the awful earthquake of the last season, which, by their
descriptions, greatly exceeded n violence anything formerly known in
those regions. It was in that earthquake, doubtless, that the colony of
the crater perished to a man.

Leaving handsome and useful presents with his friend, young Ooroony, and
putting ashore two or three Kannakas who were in the vessel, Woolston
now sailed for Valparaiso. Here he disposed of his cargo to great
advantage, and purchased copper in pigs at almost as great. With this
new cargo he reached Philadelphia, after an absence of rather more than
nine months.

Of the colony of the crater and its fortunes, little was ever said among
its survivors. It came into existence in a manner that was most
extraordinary, and went out of it in one that was awful. Mark and
Bridget, however, pondered deeply on these things; the influence of
which coloured and chastened their future lives. The husband often went
over, in his mind, all the events connected with his knowledge of the
Reef. He would thus recall his shipwreck and desolate condition when
suffered first to reach the rocks; the manner in which he was the
instrument in causing vegetation to spring up in the barren places; the
earthquake, and the upheaving of the islands from out of the waters: the
arrival of his wife and other friends: the commencement and progress of
the colony; its blessings, so long as it pursued the right, and its
curses, when it began to pursue the wrong; his departure, leaving it
still a settlement surrounded with a sort of earthly paradise, and his
return, to find all buried beneath the ocean. Of such is the world and
its much-coveted advantages. For a time our efforts seem to create, and
to adorn, and to perfect, until we forget our origin and destination,
substituting self for that divine hand which alone can unite the
elements of worlds as they float in gasses, equally from His mysterious
laboratory, and scatter them again into thin air when the works of His
hand cease to find favour in His view.

Let those who would subst