may be considered as a sort of exercise, prescribed by nature to keep the ocean in good health.  The same may be affirmed with respect to the winds.  Wind is a substance, as well as water, capable of great expansion, but still a substance.  A certain portion has been allotted to the world for its convenience, and there is a regularity in its apparent variability.  It must be self-evident, when all the wind has been collected to the eastward, by the north-west gales which prevail in winter, that it must be crowded and penned up in that quarter, and, from its known expansive powers, must return and restore the equilibrium.  That is the reason that we have such a long continuance of easterly winds, in the months of February and March.”

“You said that you had communication with Europe?”

“We have occasionally visits perforce, from those who are cast away in ships or boats; but the people who come here, have never returned.  The difficulty of leaving the island is very great:  and we flatter ourselves, that few who have remained any time with us, have ever felt the desire.”

“What—­not to leave a barren rock, without even a blade of grass upon it.”

“Happiness,” replied my conductor, “does not consist in the variety of your possessions, but in being contented with what you have”—­and he commenced the descent of the hill.

I followed him in a melancholy mood, for I could imagine little comfort in such a sterile spot.

“I am not a native of this island,” observed he, as we walked along; “it is more than four hundred years since it was first inhabited, by the crew of a French vessel, which was lost in the Northern Ocean.  But I do not wish to leave it.  I was cast on it in a whale boat, when separated from the ship in a snow-storm, about twenty-five years ago.  I am now a married man, with a family, and am considered one of the wealthiest inhabitants of the island, for I possess between forty and fifty whales.”

“Whales!” exclaimed I, with astonishment.

“Yes,” replied my conductor, “whales, which are the staple of this island, and without them we should not be so prosperous and so happy as we are.  But you have much to see and learn; you will by-and-bye acknowledge that there is nothing existing in the world, which, from necessity and by perseverance, man cannot subject to his use.  Yon lake which covers the bottom of our valley, is our source of wealth and comfort, and yields us an increase as plentiful as the most fertile plains of Italy or France.”

As we arrived close to the foot of the hills, I perceived several black substances on the shores of the lake.  “Are those whales?” inquired I.

“They were whales, but they are now houses.  That one by itself is mine, which I hope you will consider as yours, until you have made up your mind as to what you will do.”