the vast gap which the primeval currents had sawn out. There it all
lay beneath us like a map; its thousand hues toned down harmoniously
into each other by the summer haze, and 'the eye was not filled with
seeing,' nor the spirit with the intoxicating sight of infinitely
various life and form in perfectest repose.

I was the first to break the silence.

'Claude, well-beloved, will you not sketch a little?'

No answer.

'Not even rhapsodize? call it "lovely, exquisite, grand, majestic"?
There are plenty of such words in worldlings' mouths--not a Cockney
but would burst out with some enthusiastic commonplace at such a
sight--surely one or other of them must be appropriate.'

'Silence, profane! and take me away from this. Let us go down, and
hide our stupidities among those sand-hills, and so forget the whole.
What use standing here to be maddened by this tantalizing earth-
spirit, who shows us such glorious things, and will not tell us what
they mean?'

So down we went upon the burrows, among the sands, which hid from us
every object but their own chaotic curves and mounds. Above, a
hundred skylarks made the air ring with carollings; strange and gaudy
plants flecked the waste round us; and insects without number whirred
over our heads, or hung poised with their wings outspread on the tall
stalks of marram grass. All at once a cloud hid the sun, and a
summer whirlwind, presage of the thunderstorm, swept past us,