1 62 IRature StuMes in Berfcebire. 



tions wheeling in silent glory through the heavens. 

 We followed all their splendid evolutions. When we 

 lay down and began to stare at them, the Great Bear 

 was climbing down the west, and when we arose to 

 greet the dawn he was hunting his breakfast in the 

 regions eastward. 



We saw Cassiopeia's Chair turned slowly upside- 

 down, and the Swan swim half across the sky, with 

 Pegasus in full chase. Before the dawn began to 

 streak the east, the Pleiades and Hyades had appeared 

 in the south-east, and behind them came Taurus and 

 Orion, seldom seen by summer star-gazers, because 

 they rise so early in hot weather. It was a glorious 

 experience to occupy this lofty observatory and fancy 

 ourselves back in the primeval ages — mere cave- 

 dwellers, or Aryan shepherds, looking out upon these 

 constellations which have changed never a whit since 

 those far-off days. 



The task of the imagination was not so hard, in 

 transferring us so far backward in time. No troglo- 

 dyte ever had a ruder couch. No shepherd on the 

 Asiatic plains ever slept more frankly under the skies. 

 The mountain herbage was not as soft as a spring 

 bed, and the log we used as a common bolster, even 

 when softened by the thin folds of a coverlid, was by 

 no means downy. We lay down in a row, each man 

 with his hat and overcoat on, and drew a thick quilt 

 over the entire squad. Packed thus in close order, 

 even when the fire burned low, and only one weary 

 eye of live coal glowed and glared at the watchers 



