GLORIOUS PROSPECT. 61 



all was grey, or green, or black, as far as the vision 

 could extend. It looked as if the Almighty had once 

 set this vast earth rolling like the sea ; and then, in 

 the midst of its maddest flow, bid all the gigantic 

 billows stop and congeal in their places. And there 

 they stood, just as He froze them — grand and gloomy. 

 There was the long swell — and there the cresting, 

 bursting billow — and there, too, the deep, black, 

 cavernous gulf. Far away — more than fifty miles 

 to the south-east — a storm was raging, and the mas- 

 sive clouds over the distant mountains of Vermont, 

 or rather between us and them, and below their sum- 

 mits, stood balanced in space, with their white tops 

 towering over their black and dense bases, as if they 

 were the margin of Jehovah's mantle folded back to 

 let the earth beyond be seen. That far-away storm 

 against a background of mountains, and with 

 nothing but the most savage scenery between — how 

 mysterious — how awful it seemed ! 



Mount Colden, with its terrific precipices — Mount 

 Mclntyre, with its bold, black, barren, monster-like- 

 head — White Face, with its white spot on its forehead, 

 and countless other summits pierced the heavens in 

 every direction. And then, such a stretch of forest, 



