HARMONIES. 



needles of naked granite, where the furious gale, 

 shrieking and howling through the crevices, 

 threatens to hurl horse and man a thousand 

 fathoms down; — then he passes into a forest 

 where not a breath waves the tops of the ancient 

 cedars. 



It is a region where animal life is not very 

 abundant, but where the framework of the solid 

 earth itself stands revealed in unrivalled gorgeous- 

 ness. The cliffs are here of crimson or purple 

 porphyry, as brilliant as the dyed products of the 

 loom, there of dark-red granite seamed with thick 

 veins of pure rose-coloured quartz, transparent 

 as glass. Here a vast, uncouth column of black 

 basalt rears its fused cylinders from the midst of 

 a narrow ravine; and here a vast precipice ap- 

 pears of white marble, as pure as that of Paros. 

 Kocks of all hues, bright red, purple, yellow, 

 green ; of all combinations of colours, white with 

 purple spots, white with blue veins, brown with 

 pale green streaks, pale crimson with veins of 

 black and yellow, are scattered about in unheeded 

 confusion; while, above all, the rich and splendid 

 jasper rises in enormous masses, as if it were the 

 vilest rock, yet glittering in gorgeous beauty, — 

 mountains of gems. Here is one of a dark sea- 

 green, with cream-coloured veins ; there a mass of 

 deep violet; and here a ribbon-stripe, marked ir- 

 regularly with alternate bands of red, brown, and 

 green ; and yonder is a huge heap of shattered 

 blocks of the richest plum-purple, transmitting the 

 light in sparkling lustre through their translucent 

 substance, as they lie where they have been tum- 

 bled down from their beds by the force of the tor- 

 rent, and presenting the most agreeable contrasts 

 between their own deep, rich, imperial hue, and 

 that of the yellow-green moss that springs in 

 4 49 



