146 EAMBLBS OP A NATUEALIST, [Ch. X. 



China seas. The weather was magnificent — cahn and 

 bright — and although we crossed the path of the sun on the 

 25th, the heart was not oppressive. Nothing remarkable 

 occurred ; but a succession of clear brilliant days, with 

 gently undulating seas, and grand piles of cumulus in the 

 sky, tier upon tier, down to the most distant horizon. At 

 night, too, the light of the full moon made it almost as 

 bright as day, and the constellations shone with a brilliancy 

 only to be seen in these latitudes, the brighter stars like 

 clear lamps, leaving a trail of light over the smooth sea* I 

 will not dilate upon the beautiful atmospheric effects which 

 succeeded each other with never-failing variety; but will 

 only allude to one circumstance, which struck me as unu- 

 sual. The sun was going down almost cloudlessly in the 

 west, when I observed arising from a point in the eastern 

 horizon, directly opposite the sun, those beautiful radiating 

 bands of light so commonly noticed around the sun itself, 

 and popularly known imder the expression of the "sun draw- 

 ing water." Their occurrence opposite the sun, however, 

 struck aU whose attention I directed to the phenomenon, as 

 something novel and unusual. 



On the 1st August we anchored at the edge of an ex- 

 tensive coral reef, marked on the charts as Fiery Cross Eeef, 

 from the circumstance of the ship " Fiery Cross " having 

 been wrecked thereon. The surface of the sea was per- 

 fectly smooth and glass-like, so that at the depth of 60 or 70 

 feet we could see the anchor lying at the bottom among 

 blocks of coral as distinctly as if it had been but six feet from 

 the surface. Never to be forgotten is my first ramble over 

 this coral reef on such an afternoon. Taking a boat, with a 

 couple of rowers, I left the ship and steered in search of the 

 shallowest portions of the coral-strewn sea. A short row 



