y, one of those, I could not doubt,
that had existed before the flood, and which had lain submerged for
thousands of centuries; the fretwork of the coral-insect was over all
(that worker against time, so slow, so certain), in one monotonous web
of solid snow.

Statues of colossal size, and arches of Titanic strength and power,
adorned the portals, the pass-ways, the temples of this metropolis of
ocean, guarded as were these last by the effigies of griffin and dragon,
and winged elephant and lion, and stately mastodon and monstrous
ichthyosaurus, all white as gleaming spar.

Gods and demi-gods of gigantic proportions and majestic aspect were
carved on the external walls of the windowless abodes and fanes; and,
from the yawning portal of one of these, a temple vast as Dendera's
self, came forth, fold after fold, even as I seemed to gaze, the
monstrous sea-serpent of which mariners dream, more huge, more loathly,
than fancy or experience ever yet portrayed him. I still behold in
memory the stately, fearful head, with its eyes of emerald fire and
sweeping, sea-green mane, as it reared its neck for a moment as if to
scale the ladder the sunbeams had thrown down when first emerging from
its temple-cavern; and, later, the mottled, monstrous body, as coil
after coil was gradually unwound, until it seemed at last to lie in all
its loathsome length for roods along the silent, shell-paved
streets--the scaly monarch of that scene of human desolation!

I recall the feeling of security that upheld me to look and to observe
every motion of the reptile of my dream.

"He cannot come to me here," I thought. "The ark is sacred, and God's
hand is over it; besides, I hear the singing of the priests, and the
dove is about to be cast forth! Will the raven never come back? Oh, the
sweet olive-branch! It falls so lightly! We are nearing the mountain
now, and we shall soon cast anchor!"

Then, among choral chants of joy and thanksgiving, I seemed to sleep.
How long this slumber lasted, or whether it came at all, I never knew.
It is a loving and tender thing in our Creator to decree to us this
curtain of unconsciousness when nerve and strength would otherwise give
way beneath the intensity of suffering--a holy and gentle thing for
which we are not half thankful enough in oar estimate of blessings.

My sleep, or swoon, shielded me from long hours of agony, mental and
physical, that must have become unendurable ere the close. As it was, I
kn