DAY AND NIGHT. 297 



iside our watches as useless, leaving it, if I remember 

 rightly, to the skipper cf our yacht to tell us when 

 Sunday came round, for we always, when practicable, 

 spent that day at anchor, and had service on board. 



I do not use hyperbolical language when speaking of 

 this perpetual daylight. During several weeks, after we 

 had crossed the Arctic circle, the sun descended little 

 more than its own diameter below the horizon each 

 night, so that it had scarcely set when it rose again, and 

 the diminution of the light was quite insignificant ; it did 

 not approach in the slightest degree to twilight. If I had 

 suddenly awakened during any of the twenty-four hours 

 in the cabin of the yacht, or in any place from which it 

 was impossible to observe the position of the sun, I could 

 not have told whether it was night or day ! 



Having said that, it is almost superfluous to add that 

 we could, even in the cabin, read the smallest print at 

 midnight as easily as at noonda}\ Moreover, a clear 

 midnight was absolutely brighter than a cloudy fore- 

 noon. Nevertheless, there was a distinct difference 

 between night and day a difference with which light 

 had nothing to do. 



I am inclined to think that the incalculable myriads of 

 minute and invisible creatures with which God has filled 

 the solitudes of this world, even more largely than its 

 inhabited parts, exercise a much more powerful influence 

 on our senses than we suppose. 



During the day-time these teeming millions, bustling 

 about in the activities of their tiny spheres, create a& 



