"Go up again," said I, "and take another look;" and he clambered up
the precipice.
"Well, how is it?"
"Just the same, only I see one little bright spot over the top of the
mountain.
The rain by this time had begun to abate; and going down to the
bottom of the ravine, we loosened the animals, who were standing up
to their knees in water. Leading them up the rocky throat of the
ravine, we reached the plain above. "Am I," I thought to myself,
"the same man who a few months since, was seated, a quiet student of
BELLES-LETTRES, in a cushioned arm-chair by a sea-coal fire?"
All around us was obscurity; but the bright spot above the
mountaintops grew wider and ruddier, until at length the clouds drew
apart, and a flood of sunbeams poured down from heaven, streaming
along the precipices, and involving them in a thin blue haze, as soft
and lovely as that which wraps the Apennines on an evening in spring.
Rapidly the clouds were broken and scattered, like routed legions of
evil spirits. The plain lay basking in sunbeams around us; a rainbow
arched the desert from north to south, and far in front a line of
woods seemed inviting us to refreshment and repose. When we reached
them, they were glistening with prismatic dewdrops, and enlivened by
the song and flutterings of a hundred birds. Strange winged insects,
benumbed by the rain, were clinging to the leaves and the bark of the
trees.
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