As the fever of my blood encreased, a desire of wandering came upon me.  I remember, that the sun had set on the fifth day after my wreck, when, without purpose or aim, I quitted the town of Ravenna.  I must have been very ill.  Had I been possessed by more or less of delirium, that night had surely been my last; for, as I continued to walk on the banks of the Mantone, whose upward course I followed, I looked wistfully on the stream, acknowledging to myself that its pellucid waves could medicine my woes for ever, and was unable to account to myself for my tardiness in seeking their shelter from the poisoned arrows of thought, that were piercing me through and through.  I walked a considerable part of the night, and excessive weariness at length conquered my repugnance to the availing myself of the deserted habitations of my species.  The waning moon, which had just risen, shewed me a cottage, whose neat entrance and trim garden reminded me of my own England.  I lifted up the latch of the door and entered.  A kitchen first presented itself, where, guided by the moon beams, I found materials for striking a light.  Within this was a bed room; the couch was furnished with sheets of snowy whiteness; the wood piled on the hearth, and an array as for a meal, might almost have deceived me into the dear belief that I had here found what I had so long sought—­one survivor, a companion for my loneliness, a solace to my despair.  I steeled myself against the delusion; the room itself was vacant:  it was only prudent, I repeated to myself, to examine the rest of the house.  I fancied that I was proof against the expectation; yet my heart beat audibly, as I laid my hand on the lock of each door, and it sunk again, when I perceived in each the same vacancy.  Dark and silent they were as vaults; so I returned to the first chamber, wondering what sightless host had spread the materials for my repast, and my repose.  I drew a chair to the table, and examined what the viands were of which I was to partake.  In truth it was a death feast!  The bread was blue and mouldy; the cheese lay a heap of dust.  I did not dare examine the other dishes; a troop of ants passed in a double line across the table cloth; every utensil was covered with dust, with cobwebs, and myriads of dead flies:  these were objects each and all betokening the fallaciousness of my expectations.  Tears rushed into my eyes; surely this was a wanton display of the power of the destroyer.  What had I done, that each sensitive nerve was thus to be anatomized?  Yet why complain more now than ever?  This vacant cottage revealed no new sorrow—­ the world was empty; mankind was dead—­I knew it well—­why quarrel therefore with an acknowledged and stale truth?  Yet, as I said, I had hoped in the very heart of despair, so that every new impression of the hard-cut reality on my soul brought with it a fresh pang, telling me the yet unstudied lesson, that neither change of place nor time could bring alleviation to my misery, but