102 CONCHOLOGIST’S COMPANION. 
some inexplicable influence on the temperature of the 
sea-water, or else destroyed the mollusce on which 
the muscles are supposed to feed. 
When Humboldt visited the once celebrated Penin- 
sula of Araga, little remained of its ancient popula- 
tion, excepting a group of small dwellings, which 
clustered round the ruins of an ancient castle, from 
whence the prospect partook of a character rarely 
found in the warm regions of the globe. Neither a 
deep and gloomy forest, nor the majesty of vege- 
table forms were seen to heighten the grandeur of the 
ruins. They stood alone, on the summit of a base 
and arid mountain, crowned with agave, columnar 
cactus, and thorny mimosa, resembling less the works 
of man, than such bare and unclothed masses of 
primeval rock, as were ruptured in the earliest con- 
vulsions of the globe. It was a seene much to be 
remembered. The disk of Venus appeared at intervals 
between the yawning crannies of the castle—the night 
was cool—and swarms of phosphorescent insects 
glittering in the air, and over the soil, appeared like 
innumerable scattered and moving lights, which emu- 
lated along the vast extent of the savannas the 
starry vault of heaven. 
There is something in the scenes of early life: which 
seem to entwine themselves as with a power and a 
spell around the heart, and which, in proportion as 
