Asionally traverse immense tracts of country, may be the products of
volcanic eruptions; nor impossible, that at some future time contagious
miasmata may be thus emitted from subterraneous furnaces, in such
abundance as to contaminate the whole
atmosphere, and depopulate the earth!] 325 When stretch'd in dust her
gasping panthers lie, And writh'd in foamy folds her serpents die;
Indignant Atlas mourns his leafless woods, And Gambia trembles for his
sinking floods; Contagion stalks along the briny sand, 330 And Ocean
rolls his sickening
shoals to land. [_His sickening shoals_.
330. Mr. Marsden relates,
that in the island of Sumatra, during the November of 1775, the dry
monsoons, or S.E. winds, continued
so much longer than usual, that the large rivers became dry; and
prodigious quantities of sea-fish, dead and dying, were seen
floating for leagues on the sea, and driven on the beach by the tides.
This was supposed to have been caused by the great evaporation, and the
deficiency of fresh
water rivers having rendered the sea too fast for its inhabitants. The
season then became so sickly
as to destroy great numbers of people, both foreigners and natives.
Phil. Trans. V. LXXI. p. 384.]
--Fair CHUNDA smiles amid the burning
waste, Her brow unturban'd, and her zone unbrac'd;
_Ten_ brother-youths
with light umbrella's shade, Or fan with busy hands the panting maid;
335 Loose wave her locks, disclosing, as they break, The rising bosom
and averted cheek; [_Chunda_. l. 331. _Chundali Borrum_ is the name
which the natives give to this plant; it is the Hedylarum gyrans, or
moving plant; its class is two brotherhoods, ten ma
