Most weird and fantastic are these nightly visits to West 

 Indian harbours. Above, the black mountain-depths, 

 with their canopy of cloud, bright white against the 

 purple night, hung with keen stars. The moon, it may 

 be on her back in the west, sinking like a golden goblet 

 behind some rock-fort, half shrouded in black trees. 

 Below, a line of bright mist over a swamp, with the coco- 

 palms standing up through it, dark, and yet glistering in 

 the moon. . . . The echo of the gun from hill to hill. Wild 

 voices from shore and sea. The snorting of the steamer, 

 the rattling of the chain through the hawse-hole ; and on 

 deck, and under the quarter, strange gleams of red light 

 amid pitchy darkness, from engines, galley fires, Ian- 

 thorns ; and black folk and white folk flitting restlessly 

 across them. 



Charles Kingsley (from At Last). 



