128 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



comes now doubly sweet by t^e contrast. The evening invites 

 iibroad, and the population sally forth — the ladies in ball costume, 

 for now there is not wind enough to disarrange the lightest curl. 

 In the southern summer this change takes place day after day 

 with the utmost regularity, and yet the calm always seems to sur- 

 prise, and to come before one has time to realize that the furious 

 sea-wind could so soon be hushed. Presently the stars begin to 

 peep out, timidly at first, as if to see whether the elements here 

 below had ceased their strife, and if the scene on earth be such as 

 they, from bright spheres aloft, may shed their sweet influences 

 upon. Sirius, or that blazing world tj Argus, may be the first 

 watcher to send down a feeble ray ; then follow another and an- 

 other, all smiling meekly ; but presently, in the short twilight of 

 the latitude, the bright leaders of the starry host blaze forth in all 

 their glory, and the sky is decked and spangled with superb bril- 

 liants. In the twinkling of an eye, and faster than the admiring 

 gazer can tell, the stars seem to leap out from their hiding-places. 

 By invisible hands, and in quick succession, the constellations are 

 hung out ; but first of all, and with dazzling glory, in the azure 

 depths of space appears the Great Southern Cross. That shining 

 symbol lends a holy grandeur to the scene, making it still more 

 impressive. Alone in the night-watch, after the sea breeze has 

 sunk to rest, I have stood on the deck under those beautiful skies 

 gazing, admiring, rapt. I have seen there, above the horizon at 

 once, and shining with a splendor unknown to these latitudes, 

 every star of the first magnitude — save only six — that is contain- 

 ed in the catalogue of the 100 principal fixed stars of astronomers. 

 There lies the city on the sea-shore, wrapped in sleep. The sky 

 looks solid, like a vault of steel set with diamonds. The stillness 

 below is in harmony with the silence above, and one almost fears 

 to speak, lest the harsh sound of the human voice, reverberating 

 through those vaulted " chambers of the south," should wake up 

 echo, and drown the music that fills the soul. On looking aloft, 

 the first emotion gives birth to a homeward thought : bright and 

 lovely as they are, those, to northern sons, are not the stars nor the 

 skies of fatherland. Alpha Lyrae, with his pure white light, has 

 gone from the zenith, and only appears for one short hour above 

 the top of the northern hills. Polaris and the Great Bear have 

 ceased to watch from their posts; they are away down below the 



