38 THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 



sea of enchantment. The stars seem nearer, and 

 shine and twinkle with that wonderful bright- 

 ness seen only in that southern hemisphere. The 

 North star has dipped into the ocean, not to rise 

 again until we cross the Equator on the Pacific 

 ocean. Instead we gaze in novel delight upon 

 the Southern Cross, and we are constantly looking 

 for that mysterious and ghostlike thing known to 

 seamen as the Magellan cloud, and said to mark 

 the entrance to the famous straits of that name. 

 It is enough to make a man quote the spirited 

 lines of Kipling : 



" O, the blazing tropic night when the wake's a welt of light 

 That holds the hot sky tame, 

 And the steady forefoot snores through the planet-powdered floors, 

 Where the scared whale flukes in flame! " 



Round the horn we fly, wrestling with giant 

 seas, and then, while penguins and fur-seals go 

 sporting and barking around the Swift, we pass 

 the rugged, half -glacie red island of Terra del 

 Fuego. Warmer, day by day, grows the air and 

 softer. At last, though never a spouter have we 

 yet raised out of the ocean, our hog-yoke tells us 

 we are upon the rich off-shore whaling grounds. 



After we had been out from home eight long 

 months we chanced to speak the full-rig ship 



