268 



" It was a dismal and a fearful night ; 

 And on my soul hung the dull weight 

 Of some intolerable fate !" Cowley. 



This concluded our adventures on the voyage from India to 

 Europe; for after encountering the last storm, and getting clear of 

 the Sargasso, we were favoured by strong westerly gales, which 

 conveyed us seven or eight miles an hour without intermission, 

 until the 13th of July; when perceiving the water to be discoloured, 

 we sounded, and had ground at eighty fathoms. On the 15th we 

 saw the verdant hills on the coast of Devonshire, and I once more 

 experienced those emotions of pain and pleasure which sicken 

 the heart : they are only to be felt on such occasions, nor can 

 language describe them. When I considered the age of my vene- 

 rable parents, the uncertainty of their being yet alive, and the 

 variety of circumstances which awaited me at this important era, 

 I found every nerve of sensibility awakened. On landing at 

 Portsmouth, on the 17th, I met a friend, who informed me that all 

 our friends were well, and with fond impatience expecting their 

 long absent children. We were soon restored to their embraces; 

 and at their respective rural residences enjoyed the most ineffable 

 sensations of love and friendship in the bosom of tranquillity 7 , in 

 the sweetest season of the year ; with nothing to diminish the joy 

 of returning to our native country but a regret for the absence of 

 those friends whom we had left behind us in the torrid zone. 



" O quid solutis est beatius curis ! 

 Quum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino 

 Lahore fessi, venimus larem ad nostrum 

 Desideratoque, acquiescimus lecto. Catullus. 



