BURIED LANDS. 34 
and size of the principal Bahama islands, exclusive of the keys 
which cluster around them. 
This extensive and singular group of islands, so unlike the 
New England that the author had left behind him, charmed by 
its novelty, and elicited enthusiastic admiration. 
‘‘He found in all that met his eyes, 
The freshness of a glad surprise.” 
They repose in the lap of unending summer. Daring enter- 
prise, resistless courage, and the intense activities of busy human 
life, do not cross the great ocean river. No blighting and kill- 
ing frosts are ever found between its eastern margin and the 
rising sun. To all that we have been accustomed, or ever ex- 
perienced before, it had been practically the stream of oblivion— 
the river of death. The ancient scers who saw and pictured 
heaven dwelt in warm sunny climes. None of the streets of the 
New Jerusalem which they saw with spiritual vision, were paved 
with ice or blockaded with snow. We here found the sea so 
smooth, the wind so mild, the air so agreeably warm, the sky 
so serene, the clouds so soft and delicately tinted,,and our mind 
and heart were pervaded by such a spirit of resignation, content- 
ment and peace—of love to God and good will towards man— 
while the past appeared so unreal and dreamy,—we at times were 
almost ready to believe that our ‘“‘mortal had put on immor- 
tality.” But the regular periodic return of hunger, and an 
appetite that gave a keen relish to the gross food of earth, soon 
convinced us that we still inhabited our old bodies, and fly-like, 
adhered to the surface of one of the sun’s revolving satelites. 
In this new world our curiosity was awakened and greatly 
stimulated. What part, we inquired, have these immense banks, 
with their clustered isles played in the world’s history ? In 
what manner were they made? How many thousands of years 
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