'22 Voyage of the Novara. 



association of ideas has a most powerful cfTect upon the 

 impressions made by those phenomena of nature which are 

 so peculiarly attractive and so deeply fixed in the human 

 mind? 



The conversation generally becomes more lively on those 

 evenings when the moon, placid friend of the sailor, appears on 

 the distant horizon, shedding her silvery beams over the un- 

 broken expanse of water. The influence which she exercises 

 on the state of the weather, even the prejudices and supersti- 

 tions connected with our satellite, offer subjects of interesting 

 debate ; involuntarily the mariner looks with grateful feelings 

 towards that heavenly luminary, the mild soothing light of 

 which diminishes the number of his anxious nights, protects 

 him in present, warns him of remote dangers, and influences 

 so powerfully that vast element on which he passes the greater 

 part of his life. Indeed he who has ever spent a dark and 

 stormy night on the ocean, when the ship, lashed by the fury 

 of the waves, and borne resistlessly along, stands in constant 

 peril of coming in violent collision with a vessel similarly 

 circumstanced, or of being dashed to pieces on some iron- 

 bound coast of rugged rock, easily comprehends and will 

 excuse the sailor who ascribes to the moonlight somewhat 

 of a supernatural and mysterious power. 



In this manner, and notwithstanding the continued same- 

 ness, days and months glide away like hours, until we again 

 cast anchor, and only the work accomplished gives an idea of 

 the length of time which has been passed at sea. 



