itted here and there, their colours contrasting with the green
foliage. Gauzy-winged insects buzzed to and fro. The notes of the
nightingale, or some kindred songster, could be heard, singing an
ecstatic soprano to the cooing bass of the dove and the rippling
obbligato of babbling brooks--that filtered through golden-yellow sands
into the lap of the mother of waters--amid the sympathetic harmony of
gushing cascades, whose noisy cadence was toned down by distance to a
melodious hum.

And now I find that I am alone no longer.

I see Min stepping forward to greet me, advancing down the sloping turf-
bank of the first island I reach; but, I cannot land. I cannot touch
her hand.

No. The current sweeps my boat onward, past each tiny paradise in turn;
and, on each, I still see Min always coming towards me, yet never
reaching me! Swiftly the boat glides, swiftly and more swift; until, at
last, Min, the palm-tree-shaded coral islets and all, are lost to
sight--gradually yet in a moment.

I now seem to be borne along on the tide of a tempestuous torrent,
through rocky defiles and beneath frowning precipices.

I am in the centre of a cyclone. The sickly lightning plays around me.
The thunder mutters--growls--rolls--peals forth--in grand ear-breaking
crashes, that appear to shake the dense sky overhead; but still,
whenever the electric coruscations light up the sable darkness, I can
see Min's face, apparently ever before me, ever inviting me on, ever
inapproachable!

Anon, the boat glides back into the ocean again. Soon after, I find
myself floating amongst an army of icebergs, all glittering with
distinct gradations of tint, from that of pale sea-green up to intense
blue. In front of me stretches a frozen field of hummocky ice, like
that I had seen in my first vision.

There, too, stands Min. The current is bearing me to her; but, again,
ere I can touch the spot where she stands, my boat careens heavily
against a drifting berg, and is dashed to pieces.

Instead of sinking in the water, however, I feel myself floating in air.
The atmosphere that encircles me is all rosy illumination, as it had
been during the Alpine sunrise. I hear the most beautiful, heavenly
music, and the sound as of many voices singing together in the sweetest
of harmonies.

I see the gilded domes and minarets of a wondrous city that seems to be
built in the centre of the zenith. I am wafted nearer and nearer to it,
borne up on the pinio