20 THE INDIAN ECLIPSE, 1898. 



all intruders from us. The Resident, Mr. Bullock, Captain 

 Horsburgh and their friends, with great consideration and 

 courtesy, took their places in or near our living camp; the 

 army of servants were kept still farther off ; and the numerous 

 natives who had come down by train that morning or the day 

 before were not allowed to come nearer to us than the village of 

 Talni itself. We were therefore entirely alone : no one, except 

 the members of our actual observing party, was in sight, except 

 our policemen the sergeant of whom spent the time of the 

 eclipse at his devotions, and is immortalised in the design by 

 Mr. Herbert Johnson on the cover of this volume. 



I have before mentioned that the walls of our huts were made 

 of bamboo mats, and we now noticed a very pretty phenomenon. 

 Through the interstices of the matting, the sunlight fell on the 

 cement floor in little spots of light. The dark moon had not 

 encroached far upon the sun before our attention was caught by 

 a corresponding defalcation in these little wafers of light ; and 

 henceforward we watched the progress of the partial phase as if 

 by means of hundreds of little pinhole cameras. A precisely 

 similar effect was noticed by the Resident and his party under 

 the trees in the dwelling camp, and, as the photograph on 

 p. 19 shows, it was also noticed at places outside the central 

 line ; this particular photograph showing a piece of pavement 

 in one of the chief avenues of Bombay. 



In the corner of our hut was mdunted the same signal clock 

 one of those used in the Harton Colliery experiment of Sir 

 George Airy, but slightly altered for eclipse purposes, and kindly 

 lent by the present Astronomer Royal that we had used in our 

 expedition to Norway. Apparently the heat had affected the 

 contact springs, for after performing very well from the time it 

 was mounted till the day before the eclipse it began to give an 

 amazing amount of trouble, and caused me no small anxiety 

 during the early stage of the eclipse. Perhaps the greater 

 coolness of totality had a good influence on it, for during the 

 two critical minutes it fulfilled its duty without the slightest 

 hitch. 



The falling temperature, as totality drew near, was very 

 striking. Just as in Norway we had felt the darkness of the 

 eclipse a sensible relief from the long continuous daylight, so 

 now in India the coolness and diminution of glare were felt to 

 be very grateful. The solar topee could be safely discarded, and 

 we unanimously voted that India would be an ideal land if its 

 sun could be perpetually half eclipsed. 



As the heat declined, the light faded, and the colours died 

 out of the objects near. The green of the leaves of the trees in 

 the grove that sheltered our tents turned to a dull lead, and the 

 blue of the sky was changed into a sombre purple grey. 



Then came the end. Mr. Evershed, watching the spectrum, 



