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it was lost amidst a thousand shrieks of more selfish terror. Again and again she returned to the spot where they had been divided-to find her companions gone, to seize every fugitive to inquire of Glaucus-to be dashed aside in the impatience of distraction. Who in that hour spared one thought to his neighbour? Perhaps in scenes of universal horror, nothing is more horrid than the unnatural selfishness they engender. At length it occurred to Nydia, that as it had been resolved to seek the sea-shore for escape, her most probable chance of rejoining her companions would be to persevere in that direction. Guiding her steps, then, by the staff which she always carried, she continued with incredible dexterity, to avoid the masses of ruin that encumbered the path-to thread the streets—and unerringly (so blessed now was that accustomed darkness, so afflicting in ordinary life!) to take the nearest direction to the sea-side.

Poor girl! her courage was beautiful to behold!—and Fate seemed to favour one so helpless ! The boiling torrents touched her not, save by the general rain which acompanied them; the huge fragments of scoria shivered the pavement before and beside her, but spared that frail form: and when the lesser ashes fell over her, she shook them away with a slight tremour, and dauntlessly resumed her course.

She had gone some distance towards the seashore, when she chanced to hear from one of the fugitives that Glaucus was resting beneath the arch of the forum. She at once turned her back on the sea and retraced her steps to the city. She gained the forum-the arch; she stooped down—she felt around-she called on the name of Glaucus.

A weak voice answered-'Who calls on me? Is it the voice of the Shades? Lo! I am prepared!'

'Arise! follow me! Take my hand! Glaucus, thou shalt be saved!'

In wonder and sudden hope, Glaucus arose-'Nydia still! Ah! thou, then, art safe !'

The tender joy of his voice pierced the heart of the

poor Thessalian, and she blessed him for his thought of her.

Half leading, half carrying Ione, Glaucus followed his guide.

After many pauses and incredible perseverance, they gained the sea, and joined a group, who, bolder than the rest, resolved to hazard any peril rather than continue in such a scene. In darkness they put forth to sea; but, as they cleared the land and caught new aspects of the mountain, its channels of molten fire threw a partial redness over the waves.

Utterly exhausted and worn out, Ione slept on the breast of Glaucus, and Nydia lay at his feet. Meanwhile the showers of dust and ashes, still borne aloft, fell into the wave, and scattered their snows over the deck. Far and wide, borne by the winds, those showers descended upon the remotest climes, startling even the swarthy African; and whirled along the antique soil of Syria and Egypt.

And meekly, softly, beautifully dawned at last the light over the trembling deep!-the winds were sinking into rest —the foam died from the glowing azure of that delicious sea. Around the east, their mists caught gradually the rosy hues that heralded the morning; light was about to resume her reign. Yet, still, dark and massive in the distance lay the broken fragments of the destroying cloud, from which red streaks, burning more and more dimly, betrayed the yet rolling fires of the mountain of the 'Scorched Fields.' The white walls and gleaming columns that had adorned the lovely coasts were no more. Sullen and dull were the shores so lately crested by the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The darlings of the Deep were snatched from her embrace! Century after century shall the mighty Mother stretch forth her azure arms, and know them not-moaning round the sepulchres of the Lost!

SIR E. BULWER LYTTON.

THE ISLAND OF JAN MAYEN.

Up to this time we had seen nothing of the island, yet I knew we must be within a very few miles of it; and now, to make things quite pleasant, there descended upon us a thicker fog than I should have thought the atmosphere capable of sustaining; it seemed to hang in solid festoons from the mast and spars. To say that you could not see your hand, ceased almost to be any longer figurative; even the ice was hid-except those fragments immediately adjacent, whose ghastly brilliancy the mist itself could not quite extinguish as they glimmered round the vessel like a circle of luminous phantoms. The perfect stillness of the sea and sky added very much to the solemnity of the scene; almost every breath had fallen, scarcely a ripple tinkled against the copper sheathing, as the solitary little schooner glided along at the rate of half a knot or so an hour, but the only sound we heard was the distant wash of waters, but whether on a great shore, or along a belt of solid ice, it was impossible to say. In such weather, as the original discoverers of Jan Mayen said under similar circumstances, 'it was easier to hear land than to see it.' Thus hour after hour passed by and brought no change. Fitz and Sigurdr-who had begun quite to disbelieve in the existence of the island-went to bed, while I remained pacing up and down the deck, anxiously questioning each quarter of the grey canopy that enveloped us. At last, about four in the morning, I fancied some change was going to take place: the heavy wreaths of vapour seemed to be imperceptibly separating, and in a few minutes more the solid roof of grey suddenly split asunder, and I beheld through the gap-thousands of feet overhead, as if suspended in the crystal sky-a cone of illuminated snow.

You can imagine my delight. It was really that of an anchorite catching a glimpse of the seventh heaven. There at last was the long-sought-for mountain actually tumbling

down upon our heads. Columbus could not have been more pleased, when, after nights of watching, he saw the first fires of a new hemisphere dance upon their water; nor, indeed, scarcely less disappointed at their sudden disappearance than I was, when the roof of mist closed again, and shut out all trace of the transient vision. There was nothing for it but to wait patiently until the curtain lifted, and no child ever stared more eagerly at a green drop-scene in expectation of 'the realm of dazzling splendour' promised in the bill, than I did at the motionless grey folds that hung around us. At last the hour of liberation came: a purer light seemed gradually to penetrate the atmosphere, brown turned to grey, and grey to white, and white to transparent blue, until the lost horizon entirely reappeared, except where in one direction an impenetrable veil of haze still hung suspended from the zenith to the sea. Behind that veil I knew must be Jan Mayen.

A few minutes more, and slowly, silently, in a manner you could take no count of, its dusky hem first deepened to a violet tinge, then gradually lifting, displayed a long line of coast, in reality but the roots of Beerenberg, dyed of the darkest purple; while, obedient to a common impulse, the clouds that wrapt its summit gently disengaged themselves and left the mountain standing in all the magnificence of her 6870 feet, girdled by a single zone of pearly vapour from underneath whose floating folds seven enormous glaciers rolled down into the sea! Nature seemed to have turned sceneshifter, so artfully were the phases of this glorious spectacle successively developed.

Although, by reason of our having hit upon its side instead of its narrow end, the outline of Mount Beerenberg appeared to us more like a sugar loaf than a spire,—broader at the base and rounder at the top than I had imagined,-in size, colour, and effect it far surpassed anything I had anticipated. The glaciers were quite an unexpected element of beauty. Imagine a mighty river of as great a volume as the Thames-startled down the side of a mountain,-bursting over every impedi

ment,—whirled into a thousand eddies,-tumbling and raging on from ledge to ledge in quivering cataracts of foam,—then suddenly struck rigid by a power so instantaneous in its action, that even the froth and fleeting wreaths of spray have stiffened to the immutability of sculpture. Unless one saw it, it would be almost impossible to realize the strangeness of the contrast between the actual tranquillity of these silent crystal rivers and the violent descending energy impressed upon their exterior. You must remember, too, all this is upon a scale of such prodigious magnitude, that when we succeeded subsequently in approaching the spot where with a leap like that of Niagara one of these glaciers plunges down into the sea-the eye, no longer able to take in its fluvial character, was content to rest in simple astonishment at what then appeared a lucent precipice of grey-green ice, rising to the height of several hundred feet above the masts of the vessel. LORD DUFFERIN.

THE LOST EXPEDITION WITH FRANKLIN.

LIFT-lift, ye mists, from off the silent coast,
Folded in endless winter's chill embraces;
Unshroud for us awhile our brave ones lost!
Let us behold their faces !

In vain! the North has hid them from our sight;
The snow their winding-sheet,—their only dirges
The groan of icebergs in the Polar night,
Racked by the savage surges.

No funeral torches, with a smoky glare,
Shone a farewell upon their shrouded faces ;
No monumental pillar, tall and fair,

Towers o'er their resting-places.

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