LOVELY AURORA BOREALIS. 15 



bid him draw a knife or revolver ; but pleasingly to show 

 him that you guess " he's pitching it in considerable 

 smart," and departing from unsmart fact, is no insult 

 whatever. " Do you shoot with rifle? " said one of my 

 conversationally playful friends to me. " Yes," I replied. 

 " Guess you think then you're a pretty good shot," he con 

 tinued. " Guess I do," was the rejoinder. " Guess you'll 

 not come up to our Kentucky men," continued my compan 

 ion ; " better not try your hand there unless you can come 

 nigh their doings." " What do they do ? " I inquired. 

 " Just this, yes, sir ; they place an old pea rifle barrel 

 horizontally at one hundred yards, and then with their 

 other rifle fill up the small barrel with bullets without 

 missing a shot, I reckon ; yes, sir ! " "I can't do that," 

 I replied ; " yet I have not the least fear but that at the 

 living thing they will not get far ahead of me." " Reckon 

 we shall see," and my friend then whistled and walked 

 the upper deck. 



Among the beautiful things I saw during this voyage 

 were several unclouded sunsets, and when the sea is 

 smooth, and the ship steady, I know scarcely anything 

 more sublime than the view of that splendid globe of living 

 fire sinking into the sea. On the ocean nothing impedes 

 the view. The slanting sunbeam marks, as it were, a glit 

 tering path upon the rejoicing wayes, by which the lord 

 of light descends, and when the green and gold no longer 

 flash on the mighty mirror, a crimson blush succeeds, 

 in which effulgence all too quickly dies. We were for 

 tunate enough also to witness perhaps as magnificent an 

 aurora borealis as the eyes of man ever beheld. Night 

 had closed in, when suddenly a new or sort of second 

 twilight came. The heavens at first were pale, then pink, 

 and green, and pale, and rosy, the tints alternating and 



