Speaking of the wonders by which the native of Aran is surrounded, what wonder can be greater than that of the mirage, an island that is said to rise after sunset from the Atlantic? A phantom island which the people call "O'Brazil, the Isle of the Blest," upon which a city like the New Jerusalem is built, and the old men say that that city hath no need of the sun nor of the moon to shine in it, neither does it need the light of the lamp any more at all. That island with that city has, they say, over and over again appeared far away on the Atlantic. Alison, we remember, somewhere in his charming account of the French in Egypt, gives a note on the mirage of the desert, where the parched-up soldiers of the French republic, in 1798, used to see far-distant lakes into which tumbled the waters of mighty waterfalls. On, on the French soldiers rushed. Alas! the phantom vanished; and so vanishes the phantom city seen on a summer evening from the lofty cliffs of the Aran islands. To follow in search of this "Isle of the Blest" an Aranite peasant once resolved. He had heard of St. Brendan and of Christopher Columbus, and of those mariners who, sailing over the seas in search of fame and of gold, were fortunate enough to find both. The peasant, in spite of all persuasion, set sail. [Sidenote: A PHANTOM-ISLAND.] The phantom receded; he followed. Still following, he never returned to Aran again, and his mournful fate is thus sung by Gerald Griffin:-- 1. "On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell, A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell; Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest, And they called it O'Brazil, the Isle of the Blest. From year unto year on the ocean's blue rim, The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim; The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay, And it looked like an Eden away--far away. 2. "A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale, In the breeze of the Orient loosened his sail; From Aran, the holy, he turned to the west, For though Aran was holy, O'Brazil was blest. He heard not the voice that called from the shore, He heard not the rising wind's menacing roar: Home, kindred, and safety, he left on that day, And he sped to O'Brazil away--far away. 3. "Morn rose on the deep, and that shadowy isle, O'er the faint rim and distant reflected its smile; Noon burned on the wave, and that shadowy shore Seemed lovely, distant, and faint as before. Lone evening came down on the wanderer's track, And to Aran again he looked timidly back; Oh! far on the verge of the ocean it lay, Yet the isle of the blest was away--far away! 4.