And now, what see we? A sea of volcanic waves; dark lava-currents--rough, black, and fresh as though vomited but yesterday:--vast chasms, red and burnt, and cinders, as though the fire which raised them were not yet extinguished. Why, from the Puy de Parion I could swear that smoke must rise at times, and that sulphurous vapours must still keep it in perpetual desolation. Yes, though winter's rains and snows visit this volcanic chain full sharply, and though the gigantic sawing force of frost disintegrates the softer portions of this, the Fire-king's Home, yet there they stand--and so they shall stand, till nature be again convulsed, the imperishable monuments, the stupendous demonstrations, of the Creator's illimitable energy. Yes, let the Almighty but touch these hills again, and they shall smoke! Thou dull, senseless stone, with thy numberless crystals variegating and glittering on the hard resting-place that I have chosen, whence came those minerals that combined to form thee? Did they exist, pell-mell, beneath, in the vast Tartaric depths, ready to assimilate themselves on the first signal of eruption? or did they arise suddenly, instantaneously, on the first darting of the electric current that summoned their different atoms into new forms of existence? Whence came this green olivine?--whence this plate of specular iron?--whence this quartz and felspar; and all these other minerals I see around me? Thou rude product of the great infernal Foundery, thy very existence is a problem--much more the formation of thy component parts. Stone! thou art not more varied in thy aspect--not less intelligible in thy constitution--not harder, not more unfeeling, than the heart of man! I would sooner have thee for my companion and my bosom friend, than any of that melancholy, solemn-faced crowd of hypocrites I have left behind me. Refuse me not thy rough welcome: thou art, for the time being, my couch: thou art even warmed by my contact: hast thou, then, some sympathy with the wanderer? Thou dull, crystallised block, I will think of thee, and will remember thy solid virtues, when the uncongenial offices of man shall plague me no more! THE PHILOSOPHER. "Monsieur!" said the postilion: "Monsieur!" he repeated; and he looked round wistfully to see if any one was at hand. Now, I hate to be interrupted in a reverie; and, indeed, I was so absorbed in the wheelings of a kite over my head, that I was thinking of any thing but of my lazy guide and my rolling wheels. A loud clack--clack--slap--tap--crack--crack of the whip, flourished over his head with all the gusto and the _savoir-craquer_ of a true postilion, brought me to myself. "Monsieur, I have been waiting your orders here for half an hour."