THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. v 107 



approvingly at his quondam enemy above a foaming tankard ; 

 Alas ! that all that's bright must fade 

 The brightest still the fleetest ; 

 that bright afternoon passed only too rapidly, and before we 

 seemed half ready to go, the sun and the signal gun from the 

 ship warned us to be off. 



We set sail and what little wind there was being dead aft, we 

 made a straight course for the Scotia, and as she was lying 

 about two miles off exactly opposite the landing place, we kept 

 the inner cone in sight the whole way. 



Oh ! for the brush of a Turner to convey some faint imao-e of 

 the scene. The surface of the sea, now only slowly heavino- 

 in long low swells (like some child sobbing in its sleep,) was 

 smooth as glass, the azure brow had not one rippled wrinkle. 

 Around us the intensity of blue was quite startling ; but sunset 

 was already a-blaze in the sky, and a crimson flood was slowly 

 creeping over the waters towards us. 



As we looked back, one side of the exterior wall of the 

 island was lighted up by a weird, unearthly, ruddy light, the 

 other melted gray and cold into the horizon. The whole magic 

 bowl was filled with violet shadows, out of which, baseless, 

 apparently, as the fabric of a dream, the upper two-thirds of 

 the cone glowed red and lurid as when it first emerged. in 

 flames. 



The wind had almost died away ; " eve had descended from 

 heaven above, and the sea was all rest, and the air was all love ;" 

 we glided along noiselessly and imperceptibly nothing moving 

 but a couple of Sea-eagles soaring slowly in the golden flood 

 above, taking their last look of the sun, already lost to us, 

 and one single snowy Tern* hovering, hesitatingly, as it seemed 

 over the crimson flood, like some pure soul hanging sadly over the 

 fiery lake, to which has gone down her earthly, but never to be 

 forgotten love. 



Slowly as we neared the ship, sky and sea saddened round us, 

 and when we regained the deck, and looked back upon Barren 

 Island, nothing was to be seen but a grey, misty, ill-defined 

 shape, colourless as "dreams of youth, which night and time 

 have quenched for ever." 



Sunrise next day (the 23rd) found us closely scrutinizing (as 

 we circumnavigated it at a distance of about a mile), Narcou- 

 dam, a huge densely wooded hill, which rises steep and solitary 

 out of the blue depths. We soon took to the boats, and I as 

 usual started to row round the island. 



* S. melanauchen. 



