THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 279 



equally impressive. No objects were visible but the 

 lamps of heaven and tlie luminous appearances of tlie 

 deep. The silence was only broken by the murmurs 

 of the breeze passing through our matting sails, or 

 the dashing of the spray from the bows of our boat, 

 excepting at times, wlien we heard, or fancied we 

 heard, the blowing of a shoal of porpoises, or the 

 more alarming sounds of a spouting whale. 



" At a season such as this, when I have reflected 

 on our actual situation, so far removed, in tlie 

 event of any casualty, from human observation and 

 assistance, and preserved from certain death only by 

 a few feet of thin board, which my own unskilful 

 hands had nailed together, a sense of the wakeful 

 care of the Almighty has alone afforded composure. 



" The contemplation of the heavenly bodies, 

 although they exhibit the wisdom and majesty of 

 God, who ' bringeth out their hosts by number, and 

 calleth them all by names, by the greatness of His 

 might,' impressed at the same time the conviction 

 that I was far from home, and those scenes whicli 

 in niemoiy were associated with a starlight evening 

 in the land I had left. Many of the stars which 

 I had beheld in England were visible here : the 

 constellations of the zodiac, the splendours of Orion, 

 and the mild twinkling of the Pleiades, were seen ; 

 but the northern pole-star, the steady beacon of 

 juvenile astronomical observation, the Great Bear, 

 and much that was peculiar to a northern sky, were 

 wanting. The effect of mental associations, con- 

 nected with the appearance of the heavens is singular 

 and impressive. During a voyage which I subse- 



