STUDY V. 185 



be tempted to fay. Here is the marriage of Terra 

 and OceatiuSy who thus blend and confound their 

 domains. 



In the greateft part even of uninhabited iilands, 

 lying between the Tropics, when the difcovery of 

 them was made, the banks of fand which furround 

 them were found to be filled with turtle, which 

 came thither to lay their eggs, and with the fcarlet 

 flamingos, which, as they fit on their nefts, re- 

 femble burning torches. They had, befides, a bor- 

 der of mangliers, covered with oyfters, which op- 

 pofed their floating foliage to the violence of the 

 waves, and of cocoa-trees loaded with fruit, which 

 advancing into the very fea, along the breakers, 

 prefented, to the mariner's eye, the afpefl of a city 

 with it's ramparts and it's avenues, and announced 

 to them from afar the afylum prepared for them 

 by the God of the Seas. Thefe different kinds of 

 beauty muft have been common to the Ifle of 

 France, with many other iflands, and were, in all 

 probability, deftroyed by the craving necefïïties 

 of the firfl mariners who landed upon them. Such 

 is the very imperfeâ: reprefentation of a country, 

 the Climate of which, according to ancient Philo- 

 fophers, was uninhabitable, and the foil of which 

 modern Philofophers confider as a fcum of the 

 Ocean, or of volcanos. 



The 



