stream of air, without any other sensation than that of moving quickly through space.  Whilst I was still in motion, a dim and hazy light, which seemed like that of twilight in a rainy morning, broke upon my sight, and gradually a country displayed itself to my view covered with forests and marshes.  I saw wild animals grazing in large savannahs, and carnivorous beasts, such as lions and tigers, occasionally disturbing and destroying them; I saw naked savages feeding upon wild fruits, or devouring shell-fish, or fighting with clubs for the remains of a whale which had been thrown upon the shore.  I observed that they had no habitations, that they concealed themselves in caves, or under the shelter of palm trees, and that the only delicious food which nature seemed to have given to them was the date and the cocoa-nut, and these were in very small quantities and the object of contention.  I saw that some few of these wretched human beings that inhabited the wide waste before my eyes, had weapons pointed with flint or fish-bone, which they made use of for destroying birds, quadrupeds, or fishes, that they fed upon raw; but their greatest delicacy appeared to be a maggot or worm, which they sought for with great perseverance in the buds of the palm.  When I had cast my eyes on the varied features of this melancholy scene, which was now lighted by a rising sun, I heard again the same voice which had astonished me in the Colosaeum, and which said,—­“See the birth of Time!  Look at man in his newly created state, full of youth and vigour.  Do you see aught in this state to admire or envy?” As the last words fell on my ear, I was again, as before, rapidly put in motion, and I seemed again resistless to be hurried upon a stream of air, and again in perfect darkness.  In a moment, an indistinct light again appeared before my eyes and a country opened upon my view which appeared partly wild and partly cultivated; there were fewer woods and morasses than in the scene which I had just before seen; I beheld men who were covered with the skins of animals, and who were driving cattle to enclosed pastures; I saw others who were reaping and collecting corn, others who were making it into bread; I saw cottages furnished with many of the conveniences of life, and a people in that state of agricultural and pastoral improvement which has been imagined by the poets as belonging to the golden age.  The same voice, which I shall call that of the Genius, said, “Look at these groups of men who are escaped from the state of infancy:  they owe their improvement to a few superior minds still amongst them.  That aged man whom you see with a crowd around him taught them to build cottages; from that other they learnt to domesticate cattle; from others to collect and sow corn and seeds of fruit.  And these arts will never be lost; another generation will see them more perfect; the houses, in a century more, will be larger and more convenient; the flocks of cattle more numerous; the corn-fields more extensive;