As for the future, with regard to a life to come, for that was what I was now to think about, my opinion, if it could be called such, laboured under confusion and inconsistency. Could anything have made me more miserable than another, it would have been the doubt of it; but from this I have ever been exempt, feeling assured, that were there none, our minds would no more have been created capable of entertaining an idea of it, than that our bodies would have been hampered with legs for which there was to be no need--and as these imply the function of walking, so our idea of futurity affords us the proof of it. Yet happy as I was in its belief, I always regretted that I had been born, notwithstanding that I was aware that an endless sleep and non-existence must be one and the same thing. My love of existence then, of some sort, must have been an acquired taste, like that of the opium-eater--I would that it had never commenced, but had not sufficient fortitude to relinquish it. But most probably this regret arose as I looked back through the bright and peaceful vista of my earliest days, and then fondly trusting that it could but lead to some lovely period, ere I existed here; but alas! I could recal no recollection of it, nor could any one else that I knew of, with the exception of Pythagoras, and, perhaps, my Lord Herbert of Cherbery. But I must cut short all this absurdity, to call it by the mildest term, especially as my pilgrimage is drawing "towards an end, like a tale that is told." I arose from my bed apparently with similar prejudices ere I was confined to it, but, with my constitution, they have happily received a fatal blow. Had I been with others, I should probably have lingered in Venice until my hour had come, but, as it was, what had I to stop for? "Whether it was despair that urged me on, God only knows--but to the very last, I had the lightest foot in Ennerdale." Many a weary mile have I since accomplished in a state of health almost incredible, though I am now convinced that I have performed my last; but it was a beautiful one! On the eastern shores of the Bay of Naples rises the mountain of St. Angelo. For days had I gazed upon it with a wistful eye, and with all the eagerness of my childhood, when I never saw a distant hill but I was restless until I had reached it. Notwithstanding that my strength now daily diminished, my desire so increased upon me, that but a brief time had elapsed ere I had gratified it. This mountain protrudes abruptly into the Mediterranean, dividing the bay of Salerno from that of Naples.