like a solemn undertone to all the shallow noises of the town; but at midnight, when all else is still, those successive shocks fall upon the ear with a sensation of inexpressible solemnity.  All the air, from the pine forests to the sea, is filled with a light tremor, and the intermitting beats of sound are strong enough to jar a delicate ear.  Their constant repetition at last produces a feeling something like terror.  A spirit worn and weakened by some scathing sorrow could scarcely bear the reverberation.

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=_274._= APPROACH TO SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.

Sunset came on as we approached the strait opening from Pablo Bay into the Bay of San Francisco.  The cloudless sky became gradually suffused with a soft rose-tint, which covered its whole surface, painting alike the glassy sheet of the bay, and glowing most vividly on the mountains to the eastward.  The color deepened every moment, and the peaks of the Coast Range burned with a rich vermilion light, like that of a live coal.  This faded gradually into as glowing a purple, and at last into a blue as intense as that of the sea at noon-day.  The first effect of the light was most wonderful; the mountains stretched around the horizon like a belt of varying fire and amethyst, between the two roseate deeps of air and water; the shores were transmuted into solid, the air into fluid gems.  Could the pencil faithfully represent this magnificent transfiguration of Nature, it would appear utterly unreal and impossible to eyes which never beheld the reality....  It lingered, and lingered, changing almost imperceptibly and with so beautiful a decay, that one lost himself in the enjoyment of each successive charm, without regret for those which were over.  The dark blue of the mountains deepened into their night-garb of dusky shadow without any interfusion of dead, ashy color, and the heaven overhead was spangled with all its stars long before the brilliant arch of orange in the west had sunk below the horizon.  I have seen the dazzling sunsets of the Mediterranean flush the beauty of its shores, and the mellow skies which Claude used to contemplate from the Pincian Hill; but lovely as they are in my memory, they seem cold and pale when I think of the splendor of such a scene, on the Bay of San Francisco.

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The Little Land of Appenzell.

=_275._= SWISS SCENERY,—­A BATTLEFIELD; PICTURESQUE DWELLINGS.

On the right lay the land of Appenzell,—­not a table-land, but a region of mountain, ridge, and summit, of valley and deep, dark gorge, green as emerald, up to the line of snow, and so thickly studded with dwellings, grouped or isolated, that there seemed to be one scattered village as far as the eye could reach.  To the south, over forests of fir, the Sentis lifted his huge towers of rock, crowned with white, wintry pyramids.