Meeting with no such hinderance as their companion did, the othertortoises merely fell foul of small stumbling-blocks--buckets, blocks,and coils of rigging--and at times in the act of crawling over themwould slip with an astounding rattle to the deck. Listening to thesedraggings and concussions, I thought me of the haunt from which theycame; an isle full of metallic ravines and gulches, sunk bottomlesslyinto the hearts of splintered mountains, and covered for many mileswith inextricable thickets. I then pictured these three straight-forwardmonsters, century after century, writhing through the shades, grim asblacksmiths; crawling so slowly and ponderously, that not only didtoad-stools and all fungus things grow beneath their feet, but a sootymoss sprouted upon their backs. With them I lost myself in volcanicmazes; brushed away endless boughs of rotting thickets; till finally ina dream I found myself sitting crosslegged upon the foremost, a Brahminsimilarly mounted upon either side, forming a tripod of foreheads whichupheld the universal cope.

Such was the wild nightmare begot by my first impression of theEncantadas tortoise. But next evening, strange to say, I sat down withmy shipmates, and made a merry repast from tortoise steaks, and tortoisestews; and supper over, out knife, and helped convert the three mightyconcave shells into three fanciful soup-tureens, and polished the threeflat yellowish calipees into three gorgeous salvers. * * * * *SKETCH THIRD.

ROCK RODONDO. "For they this tight the Rock of vile Reproach, A dangerous and dreadful place, To which nor fish nor fowl did once approach, But yelling meaws with sea-gulls hoars and bace And cormoyrants with birds of ravenous race, Which still sit waiting on that dreadful clift."