24 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



cannot tell at what precise moment, or how, it left us ; 

 and when the song of the robin fills the air with mel- 

 ody that many other of our birds keep up in the fields 

 and orchards till late at night. There is none of that 

 here. More than once I have said to myself, as the 

 sun hid his face behind the dark ridge of mountain, 

 leaving the trees sharply outlined against the clear 

 sky — more than once I have repeated, "Now I will 

 sit in the doorway and enjoy the twilight." But I had 

 scarcely found and filled my pipe, and settled myself 

 comfortably in doorway or hammock, when twilight 

 was gone, and the fast-gathering darkness had hid the 

 valleys, and was climbing the western slopes of the 

 mountains. The stars, already out, shine with a 

 liquid brilliancy that causes you to forget the absence 

 of dusk, and you give yourself up to the contempla- 

 tion of the lighted heavens, losing yourself in thought, 

 wandering perhaps in meditation back to the land you 

 have left, over which the same sky stretches and stars 

 gleam ; but not with the clearness of the one, nor the 

 soft brilliancy of the other — at least not at this present 

 season. 



