THE GULF STREAM. 343 
winds came with the gentle white-robed birds. As a natural 
consequence, mind and heart were pervaded with the dead faith 
of old and buried nations. Messages of love and peace seemed 
winged from heaven to earth. Give us, we inwardly exclaimed, 
the old dream of the past, in exchange for some of the fresher 
and more orthodox superstitions of modern times. It certainly 
affords a temporary pleasure to diversify hackneyed beliefs with 
a little of the antique. 
We passed within ten or twelve miles of Jupiter Inlet and 
Jupiter Lighthouse, both being plainly in view. Soon after, the 
course of our ship was altered, and, steaming a little south of east, 
all traces of the Western Continent were lost to view, but low, 
light-colored clouds still curtained the vanished land. 
Nearly all our passengers were upon the upper deck, musing 
in grateful shadows, and, with the thermometer at 80°, feeling 
only an agreeable warmth in the cooling wind. A marked change 
was soon observed in the color of the water. Its deep, rich, 
beautiful blue was unlike anything we had observed before or 
since we left New York. It attracted and riveted all eyes, and 
loosened every tongue. Gentlemen vied with the ladies in ex- 
pressing the pleasure caused by this new sensation. One passen- 
ger, of a domestic turn of mind, inferred that it was Neptune’s 
washing day, and that he had made a liberal use of his indigo 
bag. The mystery was soon explained. We were crossing the 
Gulf Stream; unconsciously we had entered the great ocean river. 
It had gathered up the equatorial heats, and, impelled by great 
natural laws which man has not been able as yet to fully discover 
and satisfactorily explain, it was executing its great beneficent 
mission, and materially aiding in equalizing the temperature of 
“regions widely separated. How unlike it seemed to the Gulf 
Stream we crossed a year before! Then we brought with us from 
the frozen north opposing winds—and a just resentment was felt 
