§ 31G. EED FOGS AND SEA BREEZES. I33 



ceases; presently it is succeeded by other grateful puffs of air, 

 which continue longer; presently they settle down into the regu- 

 lar sea-breeze, with its cooling and refreshing breath. The sun 

 declines, and the sea-wind — that is, the common trade-wind or 

 monsoon which is drawn toward the land — is awakened. It 

 blows right earnestly, as if it would perform its daily task with 

 the greatest possible ado. The air, itself refreshed upon the deep, 

 becomes gray from the vapor which envelops the promontories 

 in mist, and curtains the inland with dark clouds. The land is 

 discernible only by the darker tint which it gives to the mist; 

 but the distance can not be estimated. The sailor thinks himself 

 farther from shore than he really is, and steers on his course care- 

 lessly, while the capricious wind lashes the waters, and makes a 

 short and broken sea, from the white caps of which light curls 

 are torn, with sportive hand, to float away like party-colored 

 streamers in the sunbeam. In the mean while clouds appear now 

 and then high in the air, yet it is too misty to see far. The sun 

 approaches the horizon. Far over the land the clouds continue 

 to heap up ; already the thunder is heard among the distant hills; 

 the thunder-bolts reverberate from hill-side to hill-side, while 

 through the mist the sheets of lightning are seen.* Finally, the 

 * king of day' sinks to rest ; now the mist gradually disappears, 

 and as soon as the wind has laid down the lash, the sea, which, 

 chafing and fretting, had with curled mane resisted its violence, 

 begins to go down also. Presently both winds and waves are 

 hushed, and all is again still. Above the sea, the air is clearer or 

 shghtly clouded; above the land, it is thick, dark, and swollen. 

 To the feelings, this stillness is pleasant. The sea-breeze, the 

 driving brine, that has made a salt-pan of the face, the short, rest- 

 less sea, the dampness — all have grown wearisome, and welcome 

 is the calm. There is, however, a somewhat of dimness in the 

 air, an uncertain but threatening appearance. Presently, from 

 the dark mass of clouds, which hastens the change of day into 

 night, the thunder-storm peals forth. The rain falls in torrents in 

 the mountains, and the clouds gradually overspread the whole 

 sky. But for the wind, which again springs up, it would be 



* At Buitenzorg, near Batavia, 40 English miles from the shore, five hundred feet 

 above the sea, with high hills around, these thunder-storms occur between 4 P.M. 

 and 8 P.M. 



