ELISHA KENT KANE. 27 



body; and, giving the appointed signal to his at- 

 tendants above to heave away, he was drawn up from 

 that Tartarean cavern more dead than alive. He 

 fainted on reaching the summit of the crater, and 

 was with difficulty restored to consciousness by the 

 use of active medical agents. 



From Luzon Dr. Kane returned to Macao. In 

 August, 1844, the American embassy sailed on its 

 voyage home ; but Dr. Kane did not accompany it. 

 It was his purpose not to follow so direct a route, 

 nor to travel in such haste, but to embrace the 

 opportunity which was then afforded him to visit 

 the vast and interesting countries which intervened. 

 Accordingly he journeyed through the interior of 

 India, and traversed the Himalaya Mountains. 

 Travelling westward through those romantic climes 

 of the gorgeous Orient, whose historical glories and 

 whose natural wonders no one was able to appreciate 

 better than himself, he reached Alexandria. Hence 

 he proceeded to the examination of the mysteries 

 and wonders of the land of the Nile. He visited 

 Thebes, the city of a hundred gates ; the Pyramids ; 

 the Second Cataracts; the Temples of Rameses; 

 the mysterious and once musical, but now voiceless, 

 statue of Memnon. From Egypt he proceeded to 

 Greece, and visited Athens, Leuctra, Parnassus, and 

 the historical plains of Plataea and Thermopylae. 



