Trade-Winds, Rio Janeiro, &c. 109 



enrich the imagination. Such in general is the appearance of 

 the tropical skies to the eye of the observing voyager, and such in 

 general is their natural effect on his mind when cultivated in the 

 sources of sensibility. Yet tiiese, such as they are, fall short of 

 the influencing beauties of the equatorial skies. Here, I am really 

 of opinion, that persons who are accustomed to the sight only 

 of the more northern * or southern skies, though ihev have un- 

 questionably their peculiar, attractive, and enlivening beauties too, 

 cannot possibly form a just conception of the exquisite beauty 

 of the equatorial firmament, particularly where the calms, I am 

 about to mention, prevail. The matter of light (or, as vou long 

 since divulged to the world, that modified state of calorific evinced 

 by its producing the sensation denominated vision), reflected 

 from the green surface of the deep, where no clouds, no vapours 

 intervene, seems to extend far beyond the atmospheric realm, so 

 remote does the ethereal concave seem, in consequence of the 

 pure and peculiar pallid azure thus produced ; and where they 

 do, they appear, especially at noon, pendent, not in lowers and 

 in mists, but in clusters, and in streaks of a perfect fleecy or snowy 

 whiteness and pellucid clearness, in consequence of the perva- 

 sion of every particle of their attenuated bodies with the dart- 

 ing rays of a perpendicular sun ; and in the east and west points 

 of the horizon, on the rising and setting of this great agent of 

 light and heat and life to our system, they assume, according 

 to their particular densities, and relative positions with regard to 

 one another, all the ])rimary and various hues in variegated splen- 

 dour. At night too, the moon, particularly wh-^n in opposition 

 and " near her highest noon," reflects her borrowed light through 

 the attenuated clouds, as well as air, with peculiar lustre. Here, 

 even with a common telescope her opacities can be distinctlv ob- 

 served ; which with the starry firmament around are apt to lead 

 the mind into an infinity of space, and matter, and perplexing 

 circumstances, that completely bewilder it ; — especially as the in- 



* In no place nortli did I at any time ocrasioiialh/ notice such a beaiiti/ul 

 clear sky, as while I was in the I'revoyante, lying in the open and spacious 

 roads of Dant/ic, in 1815 and 181/, althousrh it was in the September and 

 October months, when mists condense and clouds accumulate rapidly. I 

 was told that in summer and in autumn it is particularly clear and delightful ; 

 a circumstance rather promoted than counteracted by the contiguous posi- 

 tion of the Baltic. It is more owing to the clearness of the sky, by which 

 the limited, yet adequate, influence of the sun is fully imparted, than to the 

 nature of the soil, however good, that the Dantzic grain, particularly the 

 wheat, is of a tinner texture than the English ; and it is likewise owing to 

 the une(|ual duration of the sun's influence, or summers, (both skies being 

 about etiually clear,) that it is in general fuller and larger than any yielded 

 in the most fertile parts of either of the Canadas. 



tellectual 



