Carey Lives Here

The headlands and broken bays, with the rough, steep mountains coming sheer down into the blue waters. The closeness of the land, and the narrowness of the passages, all tend to create a mysterious charm, which he who gazes at them finds himself unable to analyze. He feels tempted to land at every gully which runs up among the mountains and to investigate the strange wild world which must be beyond them. He knows, in truth, that there is nothing there,-that one brown hill would lead only to another, that there is no life among the hills, and that the very spots on which his eyes rest really contain whatever there may be of loveliness in the place. But though he knows this as fact, his imagination will not allow him to trust his knowledge. There is always present to him a vague longing to investigate the mysteries of the valleys, and to penetrate into the bosoms of the distant hills. The sweetest charms of landscape are as those of Iife ;-they consist of the anticipations of something beyond which never can be reached. I never felt this more strongly than when I was passing from one land-Iocked channel to another along the coast of Cook’s Straight.