ABSTRACT
‘Notwithstanding the perilous situation which he was in, and the dangers he had just escaped, he could not contemplate, without a pleasing astonishment, the prospect around him. He was now in the midst of this vast amphitheatre of mountains, which projected on all sides, resembling a great dome, with a space in the centre, open to the sky, of about a mile in diameter: vast natural pillars of the basaltes, like those so much admired at the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, or the island of Staffa, 125 appeared to support this sublime / rotunda. At the extremity of it, opposite to the sea, was a fine beach, forming a crescent. It was guarded on all sides from storms; and the tranquil bosom of this vast lake, as it might be called, disposed the mind to security and peace.
