Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/216

210 THE CRATER; young man as he recalled his year of solitude, and felt how different was such a welcome from his many melancholy arrivals and departures, previously to the recent events. It was rather a troublesome matter to get the cow and calf up the mountain. The first did not see enough that was attractive in naked rocks, to induce her to mount in the best of humours. She drank freely, however, at the brook, appearing to relish its waters particularly well. At length the plan was adopted of carrying the calf up a good distance, the cries of the little thing inducing its mother immediately to follow. In this way both were got up into Eden, in the course of an hour. And well did the poor cow vindicate the name, when she got a look at the broad glades of the sweetest grasses, that were stretched before her. So strongly was her imagination struck with the view for we suppose that some cows have even more ima gination than many men that she actually kicked up her heels, and away she went, head down and tail erect, scam pering athwart the sward like a colt. It was not long, however, before she began to graze, the voyage having been made on a somewhat short allowance of both food and water. If there ever was a happy animal, it was that cow ! Her troubles were all over. Sea-sickness, dry food, short allowances of water, narrow lodgings, and hard beds, were all, doubtless, forgotten, as she roamed at pleasure over boundless fields, on which the grass was perennial, seeming never to be longer or shorter than was necessary to give a good bite; and among which numberless rills of the purest waters were sparkling like crystal. The great difficulty in possessing a dairy, in a warm climate, is the want of pasture, the droughts usually being so long in the summer months. At Vulcan s Peak, however, and indeed in all of that fine region, it rained occasionally, through out the year ; more in winter than in summer, and that was the sole distinction in the seasons, after allowing for a trifling change in the temperature. These peculiarities appear to have been owing to the direction of the prevalent winds, which not only brought frequent showers, but which preserved a reasonable degree of freshness in the atmo sphere. Within the crater, Mark had often found the heat oppressive, even in the shade ; but, without, scarcely