296 AT SEA. 



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 after- 

 ward. 



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. Sword-fish 

 lay basking here and there on the surface, 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 na- 

 ture was the shoals of dolphins occasionally seen dur- 

 ing these brilliant torrid days, leaping and sporting, 

 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 

 ewell, 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. 



