ns rapidly decreased, he began to fear that he was destined for
a still more horrible fate, and that, after having eaten his own
slices, he must submit to be starved. In this state of despondency, with
infinite delight and exultation Le clearly observed, on the second
clay, at twenty-seven minutes past three P.M., though at a considerable
distance, a mountain and an island. His joy and his pride were equal,
and excessive: he called the first Alligator Mountain, in gratitude to
the pears; and christened the second after his mistress, that unlucky
mistress! The swift canoe soon reached the discoveries, and the happy
discoverer further found, to his mortification, that the mountain was
a mist and the island a sea-weed. Popanilla now grew sulky, and threw
himself down in the bottom of his boat.

On the third morning he was awakened by a tremendous roar; on looking
around him he perceived that he was in a valley formed by two waves,
each several hundred feet high. This seemed the crisis of his fate; he
shut his eyes, as people do when they are touched by a dentist, and in
a few minutes was still bounding on the ocean in the eternal canoe, safe
but senseless. Some tremendous peals of thunder, a roaring wind, and a
scathing lightning confirmed his indisposition; and had not the tempest
subsided, Popanilla would probably have been an idiot for life. The dead
and soothing calm which succeeded this tornado called him back again
gradually to existence. He opened his eyes, and, scarcely daring to try
a sense, immediately shut them; then hearing a deep sigh, he shrugged
his shoulders, and looked as pitiable as a prime minister with a
rebellious cabinet. At length he ventured to lift up his head; there was
not a wrinkle on the face of ocean; a halcyon fluttered over him, and
then scudded before his canoe, and gamesome porpoises were tumbling at
his side. The sky was cloudless, except in the direction to which he was
driving; but even as Popanilla observed, with some misgivings, the mass
of vapours which had there congregated, the great square and solid black
clouds drew off like curtains, and revealed to his entranced vision a
magnificent city rising out of the sea.

Tower, and dome, and arch, column, and spire, and obelisk, and lofty
terraces, and many-windowed palaces, rose in all directions from a mass
of building which appeared to him each instant to grow more huge, till
at length it seemed to occupy the whole horizon. The sun le