With a sudden turn of the road, a scene of magnificent beauty burst upon their view: the still expanse of a lake, bordered with dark precipices and fading woods, and mountains rising above them, height on height, till the clouds rested on their summits. A picturesque tourist had planted his travelling-chair under the corner of a rock, and was intently occupied in sketching the scene. The process attracted Sir Oran’s curiosity; he walked up to the tourist, who was too deeply engaged to notice his approach, and peeped over his shoulder. Sir Oran, after looking at the picture, then at the landscape, then at the picture, then at the landscape again, at length suddenly expressed his delight in a very loud and very singular shout, close in the painter’s ear, that re-echoed from rock to rock. The tourist sprang up in violent alarm, and seeing the extraordinary physiognomy of the personage at his elbow, drew a sudden conclusion of evil intentions, and ran off with great rapidity, leaving all his apparatus behind him. Sir Oran sat down in the artist’s seat, took up the drawing utensils, placed the unfinished drawing on his knee, and sat in an attitude of deep contemplation, as if meditating on the means to be pursued for doing the same thing himself. The flying tourist encountered Messieurs Fax and Forester, who had observed the transaction, and were laughing at it as heartily as Democritus himself could have done. They tranquillised his apprehensions, and led him back to the spot. Sir Oran, on a hint from his friend Mr. Forester, rose, made the tourist a polite bow, and restored to him his beloved portfolio. They then wished him a good-morning, and left him in a state of nervous trepidation, which made it very obvious that he would draw no more that day. _Mr. Fax._ Can Sir Oran draw? _Mr. Forester._ No; but I think he would easily acquire the art. It is very probable that in the nation of the Orans, which I take to be _a barbarous nation that has not yet learned the use of speech_,[34] drawing, as a means of communicating ideas, may be in no contemptible state of forwardness.[35] _Mr. Fax._ He has, of course, seen many drawings since he has been among civilised men; what so peculiarly delighted and surprised him in this? _Mr. Forester._ I suspect this is the first opportunity he has had of comparing the natural original with the artificial copy; and his delight was excited by seeing the vast scene before him transferred so accurately into so small a compass, and growing, as it were, into a distinct identity under the hand of the artist.