Having threaded the mazes of this channel for some hours, the gloom deepening every moment, a sharp and unexpected turn of the vessel brought it suddenly, as if dropped from heaven, into a circular basin of very considerable extent when compared with the width of the gorge.  It was about two hundred yards in diameter, and girt in at all points but one —­ that immediately fronting the vessel as it entered —­ by hills equal in general height to the walls of the chasm, although of a thoroughly different character.  Their sides sloped from the water’s edge at an angle of some forty-five degrees, and they were clothed from base to summit —­ not a perceptible point escaping —­ in a drapery of the most gorgeous flower-blossoms; scarcely a green leaf being visible among the sea of odorous and fluctuating color.  This basin was of great depth, but so transparent was the water that the bottom, which seemed to consist of a thick mass of small round alabaster pebbles, was distinctly visible by glimpses —­ that is to say, whenever the eye could permit itself not to see, far down in the inverted heaven, the duplicate blooming of the hills.  On these latter there were no trees, nor even shrubs of any size.  The impressions wrought on the observer were those of richness, warmth, color, quietude, uniformity, softness, delicacy, daintiness, voluptuousness, and a miraculous extremeness of culture that suggested dreams of a new race of fairies, laborious, tasteful, magnificent, and fastidious; but as the eye traced upward the myriad-tinted slope, from its sharp junction with the water to its vague termination amid the folds of overhanging cloud, it became, indeed, difficult not to fancy a panoramic cataract of rubies, sapphires, opals, and golden onyxes, rolling silently out of the sky.

The visiter, shooting suddenly into this bay from out the gloom of the ravine, is delighted but astounded by the full orb of the declining sun, which he had supposed to be already far below the horizon, but which now confronts him, and forms the sole termination of an otherwise limitless vista seen through another chasm —­ like rift in the hills.

But here the voyager quits the vessel which has borne him so far, and descends into a light canoe of ivory, stained with arabesque devices in vivid scarlet, both within and without.  The poop and beak of this boat arise high above the water, with sharp points, so that the general form is that of an irregular crescent.  It lies on the surface of the bay with the proud grace of a swan.  On its ermined floor reposes a single feathery paddle of satin-wood; but no oarsmen or attendant is to be seen.  The guest is bidden to be of good cheer —­ that the fates will take care of him.  The larger vessel disappears, and he is left alone in the canoe, which lies apparently motionless in the middle of the lake.  While he considers what course to pursue, however, he becomes aware of a gentle movement in the fairy bark.  It slowly swings itself around until its prow points toward the sun.  It advances with a gentle but gradually accelerated velocity, while the slight ripples it creates seem to break about the ivory side in divinest melody-seem to offer the only possible explanation of the soothing yet melancholy music for whose unseen origin the bewildered voyager looks around him in vain.