13-1 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOEOLOGY. 



cut ofif. Suddenly the winds and the sea, as if tliey had again 

 heard the voice of rebuke, are hushed, and there is a great 

 calm. 



313. The contrast. — The lull that follows is delightful. The 

 sky is without a cloud; the atmosphere is transparency itself; 

 the Andes fccem to draw near ; the climate, always mild and soft, 

 becomes now doubly sweet by the contrast. The evening in- 

 vites abroad, and the population sally forth — the ladies in ball 

 costume, for now there is not wind enough to disarrange the 

 lio'htest curl. In the southern summer this change takes place 

 day after day with the utmost regularity, and yet the calm 

 always seems to surprise, and to come before one has time to 

 realize that the furious sea wind could so soon be hushed. Pre- 

 sently 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 their bright spheres 

 aloft, may shed their sweet influences upon. Sirius, or that 

 blazing world 77 Argus, may be the first watcher to send down a 

 feeble ray ; then follow another and another, 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 brilliants. 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 impres- 

 sive. 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 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 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 

 throuo-li 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 



