I can hear the lap, lapping of the sobbing sea against the sides of my frail craft; and the ripple of the current, hurrying along in its devious course the boat, which is as powerless to resist its influence as a straw upon the stream.
Presently the current spins onward faster and more furiously.

I see the faint outlines of purple hills breaking the vacant curve of the horizon.
A delicious fragrance from tropic flowers fills the air--the perfumes of the jessamine, the magnolia, the cereus.

A sweet, delicious languor creeps over me.

I feel a vague sense of rest and happiness, which, to my onlooking self, seems almost unaccountable; for, there am I, still all alone on the ocean, swept onward towards the purple hills in the distance, over the smooth-flowing surface of azure liquid, while, not a sound is to be heard, save the restless murmuring of the many-voiced sea.
The boat glides on.
Now I find myself encircled by radiant groups of picturesque coral islands, all covered with palm-trees, whose waving branches are entwined with varied-hued passion-flowers.

Lilies and ferns, narcissi and irises, are intermingled in one chaos of beauty, skirting the velvet sward that runs down to the water's edge.
On each tiny islet, the lavish wealth of nature, freely outpoured, seemed to make it a perfect paradise.