274 FRESH FIELDS 



dome of glass. For four successive nights the sun 

 sank clear in the wave, sometimes seeming to melt 

 and mingle with the ocean. One night a bank of 

 mist seemed to impede his setting. He lingered a 

 long while partly buried in it, then slowly disap- 

 peared as through a slit in the vapor, which glowed 

 red-hot, a mere line of fire, for some moments 

 afterward. 



As we neared home the heat became severe. 

 We were going down the hill into a fiery valley. 

 Vast stretches of the sea were like glass bending 

 above the long, slow heaving of the primal ocean. 

 Swordfish lay basking here and there on the sur- 

 face, too lazy to get out of the way of the ship : — 



" The air was calm, and on the level brine 

 Sleek Panope with all her sisters played." 



Occasionally a whale would blow, or show his glis- 

 tening back, attracting a crowd to the railing. One 

 morning a whale plunged spitefully through the 

 track of the ship but a few hundred yards away. 



But the prettiest sight in the way of animated 

 nature was the shoals of dolphins occasionally seen 

 during these brilliant torrid days, leaping and sport- 

 ing, and apparently racing with the vessel. They 

 would leap in pairs from the glassy surface of one 

 swell of the steamer across the polished chasm into 

 the next swell, frisking their tails and doing their 

 best not to be beaten. They were like fawns or 

 young kine sporting in a summer meadow. It was 

 the only touch of mirth, or youth and jollity, I saw 

 in the grim sea. Savagery and desolation make up 



