1 88 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



which lay in the central line of totality, and commanded 

 a grand view of the plain over which the shadow of 

 the coming eclipse would sweep. 



Thanks to the diplomacy of our interpreter, we 

 obtained permission to use the flat roof of one of the 

 highest houses, where we established ourselves on 

 the morning of the eventful day. I had nursed with 

 great care an instrument to observe the delicate 

 variations of temperature. It was the invention of 

 Sir John Herschel (i 792-1 871), who instructed me in 

 its use, but its construction was so fragile that hardly 

 any traveller had as yet been able to take one of them 

 uninjured to its destination. I was no more fortunate 

 than my predecessors, for the long stem of the heavy 

 mercurial bulb broke. It was impossible to feel as 

 unhappy as I ought to have been, because it left me 

 free to graze at will at the comino- oreat sieht. 



And a wonderful sight it was, when the pure 

 luminous corona first displayed itself at the moment of 

 totality. It has been one of the great sights of my 

 life. I made rude sketches in the dim light, and 

 afterwards found that the closest representation of the 

 eclipse was to be obtained by blackening paper over 

 a candle and scratching out the lights, on the principle 

 of mezzotints. I published a description of the eclipse 

 in Vacation Tourists, with a sketch that has been 

 reproduced more than once, but the curl given to one 

 of the rays of the corona was not credited by most of 

 my fellow-observers. Thus Sir George Airy, when 

 lecturing on the eclipse at the Royal Institution and 

 exhibiting my sketch on the screen, expressed in the 

 most courteous way some reservation as to its accept- 

 ance as a true rendering. Photographs of subsequent 



