-NIGHT IN A TROPICAL CLIME. 213 



taining writer, I will add two pleasant pictures he 

 has drawn of the beauties of the night and the 

 morning dawn in this tropical clime : " I could 

 not sleep. Over my head I saw glittering those 

 myriads of stars that I so often gazed upon with 

 admiration during my peregrinations. Among the 

 constellations I looked out for the shepherd, which 

 in my boyhood in France I loved so to gaze upon, 

 when nature, shrouded in the mysterious veil of 

 twilight, had only this solitary star twinkling over- 

 head to light its track. The palm branches beneath 

 which I lay gently vibrated in the air ; the tem- 

 perate breeze, breathing gently as it came, em- 

 balmed by the sweet odours of the woodland flowers, 

 carolled in the distance, while it imparted to the 

 sycamore leaves a voice of song strange and full 

 of harmony, resembling the melancholy sighs of 

 many JEolian harps. I breathed these evening 

 perfumes with the utmost delight, and listened 

 attentively to the languishing murmurs of leaf and 

 breeze, cut short at intervals by the plaintive cry 

 of the widow-bird, as she hopped from tree to tree. 

 At length I fell asleep, wrapt in golden dreams." 



Here is the day-dawn : " Its first faint colouring 

 put to flight my slumbers. A penetrating odour 

 filled the wood ; the vanilla, the pachuli, the jessa- 

 mine, the ebony-tree, and thousands of wild vines 

 saturated the morning breeze with delicious per- 



