Thus passed the day, which fortunately, in my case, was succeeded by a
night of repose. The restlessness of mind and body once subdued, Nature
asserted her empire, and I slept profoundly until morning. Another day
and night followed, with little variation from the first; and by this
time, the strangeness and mystery of my situation had quite worn away,
and the feeling of security was established. I trod the upper deck with
all the pride, and more than the composure, of a modern monarch on his
throne.
But the sameness of the scenery of the vast aerial ocean, in which we
were sailing alone, without consort, without ever descrying a sail, or
even keeping a lookout, without so much as ever discovering a floating
plank to remind us of a wreck, or a seaweed to tell us of the land, was
already beginning to pall on the senses, when there appeared in the
distance before us, and multiplying to the right and the left, a
succession of white, sparkling pyramids and cones, resting on the
clouds and flashing in the nether light, like crystal monuments set to
mark the boundaries of space. These were crests of the Rocky Mountains,
covered with perpetual snow.
I gazed on them with rapture. Right in our eye, nearly due west, stood
out Long's Peak, James's Peak, and the Spanish Peaks, at first small in
size, but momently swelling in dimensions; while, far to the north,
were just discernible the more lofty summits of Mount Hooker and Mount
Brown.
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