I shuddered at the
thought, yet the horrors of solitude had now fairly possessed me; and so
dazed was I, and chilled, and woebegone, that I could lay hold of no idea
firmly amid the crowd of fancies that kept wandering in upon my brain.
I hurried onward--down, down, down. More streams came in; then there was
a bridge, a few pine logs thrown over the water; but they gave me
comfort, for savages do not make bridges. Then I had a treat such as I
can never convey on paper--a moment, perhaps, the most striking and
unexpected in my whole life--the one I think that, with some three or
four exceptions, I would most gladly have again, were I able to recall
it. I got below the level of the clouds, into a burst of brilliant
evening sunshine, I was facing the north-west, and the sun was full upon
me. Oh, how its light cheered me! But what I saw! It was such an
expanse as was revealed to Moses when he stood upon the summit of Mount
Sinai, and beheld that promised land which it was not to be his to enter.
The beautiful sunset sky was crimson and gold; blue, silver, and purple;
exquisite and tranquillising; fading away therein were plains, on which I
could see many a town and city, with buildings that had lofty steeples
and rounded domes.
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