n.

About eight o'clock at night, having become seriously alarmed at his
protracted absence, we were about setting out in search of him, when he
unexpectedly made his appearance, in health no worse than usual, and
in rather more than ordinary spirits. The account which he gave of his
expedition, and of the events which had detained him, was a singular one
indeed.

"You will remember," said he, "that it was about nine in the morning
when I left Charlottesville. I bent my steps immediately to the
mountains, and, about ten, entered a gorge which was entirely new to
me. I followed the windings of this pass with much interest. The scenery
which presented itself on all sides, although scarcely entitled to be
called grand, had about it an indescribable and to me a delicious aspect
of dreary desolation. The solitude seemed absolutely virgin. I could not
help believing that the green sods and the gray rocks upon which I trod
had been trodden never before by the foot of a human being. So
entirely secluded, and in fact inaccessible, except through a series
of accidents, is the entrance of the ravine, that it is by no means
impossible that I was indeed the first adventurer--the very first and
sole adventurer who had ever penetrated its recesses.

"The thick and peculiar mist, or smoke, which distinguishes the Indian
Summer, and which now hung heavily over all objects, served, no doubt,
to deepen the vague impressions which these objects created. So dense
was this pleasant fog that I could at no time see more than a dozen
yards of the path before me. This path was excessively sinuous, and
as the sun could not be seen, I soon lost all idea of the direction
in which I journeyed. In the meantime the morphine had its customary
effect--that of enduing all the external world with an intensity of
interest. In the quivering of a leaf--in the hue of a blade of grass--in
the shape of a trefoil--in the humming of a bee--in the gleaming of a
dew-drop--in the breathing of the wind--in the faint odors that came
from the forest--there came a whole universe of suggestion--a gay and
motley train of rhapsodical and immethodical thought.

"Busied in this, I walked on for several hours, during which the mist
deepened around me to so great an extent that at length I was reduced
to an absolute groping of the way. And now an indescribable uneasiness
possessed me--a species of nervous hesitation and tremor. I feared to
tread, lest I should be precipita