CHAPTER XIV. 



Moonlight and Starlight in the Bahama-f. JVew Heavens. The Orescent 

 and the Cross. TJie Starry Cross of Southern Ski^s. Midnight Watehings, 

 with their Be-s^dt'S. 



" The stars — they are the poetry of heaven, 

 And in their bright leaves we may read the fate 

 Of men and empires." — Child Haeold. 



"The eye 

 Breathed on by fancy, with enlarged sense 

 Through the protracted and deep hush of night, 

 May note the fairies, coursing the lazy hours 

 In various changes, and without fatigue; 

 A fickle race, who tell their time by flowers, 

 And live on zephyrs, and have stars for lamps, 

 And night dews for ambrosia." — Sim;m8. 



We found in the Bahamas not only a new earth, but the canopy 

 of stars at night was in some respects unlike that to which we 

 had been accustomed. Our astronomical knowledge was too 

 limited to enable us to indulge in a roll call of the heavenly hosts; 

 but, from the extreme north, old stars had disappeared, while 

 others, new to us, with seeming modesty, shone with a subdued 

 light from lowly positions in the southern sky. Planets and 

 great central suns appeared to have wandered from their spheres, 

 and, with renewed fires, brilliantly gleamed from new positions 

 in night's blue dome. The constellations of Orion and tlie Great 

 Bear were, with a few others, too marked in their individuality 



241 21 



