Page:Posthumous Works of Mary Wollstonecraft Vol4.djvu/111

Rh fangs; so closely did they cling to the unfriendly sand, where serpents hissed, and snakes, rolling out their vast folds, inhaled the noxious vapours. The ravens and owls who inhabited the solitude, gave also a thicker gloom to the everlasting twilight, and the croaking of the former a monotony, in unison with the gloom; whilst lions and tygers, shunning even this faint semblance of day, sought the dark caverns, and at night, when they shook off sleep, their roaring would make the whole valley resound, confounded with the screechings of the bird of night.

One mountain rose sublime, towering above all, on the craggy sides of which a few sea-weeds grew, washed by the ocean, that with tumultuous roar rushed to assault, and even undermine, the huge barrier that stopped its progress; and