CHAPTER TX, 



A MOUNTAIN RIVULET. 



THIS morning the day broke with a promise of 

 sultry heat which has been faithfully kept. The 

 air was lifeless, the birds silent ; the landscape 

 seemed to shrink from the ardor of a gaze that 

 penetrated to the very roots of the trees, and cov 

 ered itself with a faint haze. All things stood 

 hushed and motionless in a dream of heat ; even 

 the harvest fields were deserted. On such a day 

 nature herself becomes voiceless ; she seems to re 

 treat into those deep and silent chambers where 

 the sources of her life are hidden alike from the 

 heat and cold, from darkness and light. A strange 

 and foreboding stillness is abroad in the earth, and 

 one hides himself from the sun as from an enemy. 



In this unnatural hush there was one voice which 

 made the silence less ominous, and revived the 

 spent and withered freshness of the spirit. To 

 hear that voice seemed to me this morning the one 

 consolation which the day offered. It called me 

 with cool, delicious tones that seemed almost audi 

 ble, and I braved the deadly heat as the traveler 

 urges his way over the desert to the oasis that 

 promises a draught of life. As I passed along the 

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