willows, one at the head, the other at the foot of it, the spot betwixt two mountains; after the noise of all his battles, the place seemed awfully sad and dreary." October 20.-Two ships are in sight, and one island far off. The winds are driving us to the west. It is again the sabbath, a calm midsummer day. The clouds have a dreamy luxury in them, and call strongly to mind the Castle of Indolence→ "And of gay visions in the air that pass, For ever flitting round a summer's sky." The character, the tone of colouring of sky and ocean, have very much changed. O! the richness, the beauty of the voluptuous south. I have not yet seen anything of Neptune or of his family, the Oceanides. Blind Homer was well acquainted with them; but perhaps it was the privilege of blindness. As the outward closed, they rose gradually upon his inward sight:— "Blest fiat of imaginative will! To people the unpeopled, and to fill The hollow of the mind and of the main, Amongst the rocks of the Canary isles, among the dancing and whispering waves, the Sirens were certainly not visible, doubtless they still haunt their old favourite Greek isles, and may sometimes be here also. However that may be, we heard them not. Still it must be they who inspired Keats with the beautiful line "Heard music is sweet-" and act up to the spirit of their own inspiration. We are this day in lat. 27° N. The sea has been as tranquil as some deep glassy woodland pool. Now, what a change! the winds are up, and the waves roll after us in broad long ridges of foam. These must be the trade winds, for we are cutting along nine or ten knots an hour. October 21.-We have to-day reached the lat. 24° 31′ N. The trade winds blow steadily and strongly. A locust came flying about the ship this afternoon; one of the passengers caught it, and my brother has preserved it carefully. I saw it with greater pleasure than any African would one of a famous and voracious tribe-the locusts of Egypt. We yesterday sailed two hundred miles. A poor way-wearied swallow has rested upon our ship: THE WELCOME VISITOR. When weary, weary winter, Far on the billowy ocean A thousand leagues are we, Dear, old, familiar swallow! What gladness dost thou bring! Here rest, upon our flying sail, What glimpses of our native homes, To see thee, and to hear thee Amid the ocean's foam, Again we see the loved, the left We feel at home-at home! October 22.-The ship's butcher caught a martin this morning in the cow-shed, nearly exhausted. When it had rested itself in a cage for some hours, on being liberated it circled about the ship, as if again to try its fitness for the infinite of sky and ocean, then stretched fearlessly right onward, and disappeared. 66 To-day, for the first time, I saw flying-fish, and thought of the old mother's question to her sea-faring son: Well, my lad, what wonders have you seen at sea?" "Why fish, mother, flying about like birds!" "Nay, nay-tell no lies, my lad; I shall not believe that." "Well then, when we were in the Dead Sea, on weighing anchor, there came up with it a chariotwheel-marked Pharaoh." " 66 Yes, my lad, we've all read of that-that's Scripture; but the Bible says nothing of flying-fish.' Lat 22° 17′ N., long. 21° 37′ W. No ship in sight; we seem to have lost sight of them entirely. Often, in England, I have seen a rich purple colour far up above the sunset; lower, rather nearer the horizon, the softest green, a most beautiful pale green, softening into orange; whilst, with the latter colour, the hills nearest the sun have been steeped, glowing in it. Here, all these are more intensely warm; the orange, too, with a brown tone in it, a rich silky brown. October 23.—Adieu to gorgeous sunrises and sunsets; adieu to the sun, to the moon-now at full-and to the many-eyed brilliancy of stars! How strange to us, who have never before seen it, is the appearance of the sky; and has been for the three last days. The heavens are black-veiled perpetually in one suffusion of smoke-coloured cloud. This, I am told, is characteristic of this part of the sea on the African coast. In England, with so dense an atmosphere, we should expect, or have rain. Rain, here, we have not. The very ocean is tinged by the clouds, and looks like so much lead-coloured silk. Dissatisfied we are; it is not healthful; and then, only think! it would be miserable on land to lose night after night of the moon's full beauty and benignity; here, more tantalising. The sun, with all his tropical array of perpendicular fire, we are more willing to dispense with. Locusts now in numbers visit us; are caught eagerly, and wherefore? It is a new pursuit. It is very pleasing to watch the flying-fish, which are evidently startled by the ship, rising out of the water, skimming away often in flocks, touching in the sea, then, like so many swallows, flying on again. October 24.-It is a perpetual pleasure to watch the stormy petrel lightly treading on the water, seeming to walk on it. Some writer says, the name petrel implies that it was given to it, because of this circumstance, that of the little Peter, from St. Peter walking on the sea. Its motions are quick and graceful as those of the house-martin, a bird that, in its shape and colour, it, at a distance, very much resembles. Here we saw a wheat-ear. It flew timidly about the ship, flitting to and fro alit timidly, then went away. We have this morning passed within fifteen miles of San Antonio, one of the Cape Verd isles, but were not able to discern it, owing to the mistiness of the atmosphere. Some whales have been seen to-day, and one shark. Dimly to be discerned in the dusk, yet not far from us, a vessel quietly sailing on in company with us. Our people hung out a light, and soon their light, also, answered to ours. She passed on a little a-head of us, was again seen in the morning, and then altogether disappeared. Three flying-fish were this morning found upon deck. We have not been gratified with a sight of any of the Cape Verd isles. October 25.-A fine day-something new to us; clear, breezy, and making good way. Wind has changed from the north-east to the south-east-not so favourable for us. A faint gleamy light seen on the horizon to the east-supposed to be from a volcano in one of the Cape Verd isles. Beautifully moonlight. How very phosphorescent is the sea, bursting into millions of stars round the vessel! until the moon, with a more soft yet pervading light, swallowed them up. Lat. 16° 5′ N., long. 25° 56′ W. October 26.-Neptune's razor has this day been made; and is "warranted to keep what edge it has got in any climate." A sea-comedy to be acted by-and-by to those who have never crossed the Line. A brig, supposed to be English, has hove in sight, then disappeared. It was evidently homeward-bound. October 27.-Lat. 11° 13′ N., long. 24° W. A shark keeping us company; also large numbers of bonitos-the enemy of the flying-fish. The latter start out in large flocks, and scatter themselves, like coveys of partridges that have been shot at, all over the sea, evidently pursued by bonitos. The day fine; yet, as Solomon says, there is nothing new under the sun. There only wants a ship in sight to break the weary sameness of one day to another. And no sooner wished for than here it comes : A sail! how eagerly rush out The people at that welcome sound; How anxiously they look about, And search the wide horizon round. This proved to be a Dutch vessel, of about 700 tons, from Batavia to Rotterdam, heavily laden with Eastern merchandise. October 28.-No observation to-day; sun obscured. October 29.-Heavy squalls, with rain. We have lost the trade winds of the northern latitudes, and are left to the tender mercies of a tropical sun, with the variables, to the rude kind ness of squalls and thunder-storms, to the weariness of calms, and to rains that fall "as though the world were drowned;" and this we must expect until we cross the Line, and fall in, Heaven speed the day! with the south-east trades. Becalmed we were, also, yesterday. Now clear and bright, we sleep on the gently heaving water; then, almost immediately, the winds blow fiercely upon us, the heavens are blackened, and as suddenly the rain falls in torrents, and all is bright and still again. During the calms, large fish leap out of the water. Two vessels are in sight. Every few minutes the sailors are in a bustle, singing as they reef, or unreef, the sails. Such is the nature of tropical latitudes in the neighbourhood of the Equator. All is not, however, disagreeable. What beautiful, calm, moonlight nights we have had! And the waning of the moon is peculiar ; it fades away from the top level, then is hollowed by degrees. In England, I never saw the crescent float level as it does here, like a little boat, but more or less always on one side. Many of these nights I sit alone, in the pearly light and breezy air, thinking of my old English friends, and compose verses such as these: TROPICAL NIGHT THOUGHTS. WRITTEN AT SEA, LAT. 7° N.-LONG. 24° w. Night broods over the ocean wide! We have left the safe and the solid earth, The friends of our youth and our manhood's prime, With thoughts of the past and the coming time. Nor is it for lust of lucre alone, That we are over the waters blown ; |