KED FOGS AXD SEA BREEZES. 129 



once, and sliining with a splendour unknown to these latitudes, 

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

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

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

 looks sohd, hke a vault of steel set with diamonds. The stillness 

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

 •to speak, lest the harsh somid of the human voice, reverberating 

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

 echo, and di'own the music that fills the soul. On looking aloft, 

 the fh'st 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 Lyrse, with his pure white hght, has 

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

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

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

 horizon. But, glancing the eye above and around, you are daz- 

 zled with the splendours of the fii'mament. The moon and the 

 planets stand out fi^om it; they do not seem to touch the blue 

 vault in which the stars are set. The Southern Cross is just about 

 to culminate. Climbing up m the east are the Centaurs, Spica, 

 Bootes, and xintares, wiih his lovely Httle companion, which only 

 the best telescopes have power to unveil. These are all bright 

 particular stars, difiering from one another in colour as they do in 

 glory. At the same time, the western sky is glorious with its 

 brilliants too. Orion is there, just about to march down into the 

 sea ; but Canopus and Shius, with Castor and his twin-brother, 

 and Procyon, t) Argus, and Kegulus — these are high up in their 

 com'se ; they look down with great splendour, smilmg peacefully 

 as they precede the Southern Cross on its western way. And 

 yonder, farther still, away to the south, float the Magellanic clouds, 

 and the " Coal Sacks " — those mysterious, dark spots in the sky, 

 which seem as though it had been rent, and these were holes in 

 the "azure robe of night," looking out in the starless, empty, 

 black abyss beyond. One who has never watched the southern sky 

 in the stillness of the night, after the sea breeze with its tm-moil 

 is done, can have no idea of its grandem', beauty, and loveliness. 

 „. 314. Within the tropics, however, the land and sea breezes are 

 !iand and sea breezes moro gcutle, and, thougli the uiglit sceucs there are 

 rnSiopkaUo^.^ not SO suggcstivo as those just described, yet they 

 ^'^'- are exceedingly dehghtful and altogether lovely. 



The oppressive heat of the sun and the climate of the sea-shore is 



