, and the whole country was dotted with the
dwellings of man. On some spots the elevation of the soil permitted the
culture of many of the plants of Europe: the yellow ears of ripe corn
waved upon the plains; strawberry plants grew in the openings of
the woods, and the roads were bordered by hedges of rose-trees. The
freshness of the air, too, giving tension to the nerves, was favourable
to the health of Europeans. From those heights, situated near the middle
of the island, and surrounded by extensive forests, neither the sea, nor
Port Louis, nor the church of the Shaddock Grove, nor any other object
associated with the remembrance of Virginia could de discerned. Even
the mountains, which present various shapes on the side of Port
Louis, appear from hence like a long promontory, in a straight and
perpendicular line, from which arise lofty pyramids of rock, whose
summits are enveloped in the clouds.

Conducting Paul to these scenes, I kept him continually in action,
walking with him in rain and sunshine, by day and by night. I sometimes
wandered with him into the depths of the forests, or led him over
untilled grounds, hoping that change of scene and fatigue might divert
his mind from its gloomy meditations. But the soul of a lover finds
everywhere the traces of the beloved object. Night and day, the calm
of solitude and the tumult of crowds, are to him the same; time itself,
which casts the shade of oblivion over so many other remembrances, in
vain would tear that tender and sacred recollection from the heart. The
needle, when touched by the loadstone, however it may have been moved
from its position, is no sooner left to repose, than it returns to the
pole of its attraction. So, when I inquired of Paul, as we wandered
amidst the plains of Williams,--"Where shall we now go?" he pointed to
the north, and said, "Yonder are our mountains; let us return home."

I now saw that all the means I took to divert him from his melancholy
were fruitless, and that no resource was left but an attempt to
combat his passion by the arguments which reason suggested I answered
him,--"Yes, there are the mountains where once dwelt your beloved
Virginia; and here is the picture you gave her, and which she held, when
dying, to her heart--that heart, which even in its last moments only
beat for you." I then presented to Paul the little portrait which he
had given to Virginia on the borders of the cocoa-tree fountain. At this
sight a gloomy joy