"But yet," said a group of young men in every kind of costume, and of every country and time, "we have a chance at the Encantadas, the Enchanted Islands. We were reading of them only the other day, and the very style of the story had the music of waves. How happy we shall be to reach a land where there is no work, nor tempest, nor pain, and we shall be for ever happy." "I am content here," said a laughing youth, with heavily matted curls. "What can be better than this? We feel every climate, the music and the perfume of every zone, are ours. In the starlight I woo the mermaids, as I lean over the side, and no enchanted island will show us fairer forms. I am satisfied. The ship sails on. We cannot see but we can dream. What work or pain have we here? I like the ship; I like the voyage; I like my company, and am content." As he spoke he put something into his mouth, and, drawing a white substance from his pocket, offered it to his neighbor, saying, "Try a bit of this lotus; you will find it very soothing to the nerves, and an infallible remedy for home-sickness." "Gentlemen," said M. le Baron Munchausen, "I have no fear. The arrangements are well made; the voyage has been perfectly planned, and each passenger will discover what he took passage to find, in the Hole into which we are going, under the auspices of this worthy Captain." He ceased, and silence fell upon the ship's company. Still on we swept; it seemed a weary way. The tireless pedestrians still paced to and fro, and the idle smokers puffed. The ship sailed on, and endless music and odor chased each other through the misty air. Suddenly a deep sigh drew universal attention to a person who had not yet spoken. He held a broken harp in his hand, the strings fluttered loosely in the air, and the head of the speaker, bound with a withered wreath of laurels, bent over it. "No, no," said he, "I will not eat your lotus, nor sail into the Hole. No magic root can cure the home-sickness I feel; for it is no regretful remembrance, but an immortal longing. I have roamed farther than I thought the earth extended. I have climbed mountains; I have threaded rivers; I have sailed seas; but nowhere have I seen the home for which my heart aches. Ah! my friends, you look very weary; let us go home." The pedestrian paused a moment in his walk, and the smokers took their pipes from their mouths. The soft air which blew in that moment across the deck, drew a low sound from the broken harp-strings, and a light shone in the eyes of the old man of the figure-head, as if the mist had lifted for an instant, and he had caught a glimpse of the lost Atlantis. "I really believe that is where I wish to go," said the seeker of the fountain of youth. "I think I would give up drinking at the fountain if I could get there. I do not know," he murmured, doubtfully; "it is not sure; I mean, perhaps, I should not have strength to get to the fountain, even if I were near it."