24 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
cannot tell at what precise moment, or how, it left us ; 
and when the song of the robin fills the air with mel- 
ody that many other of our birds keep up in the fields 
and orchards till late at night. There is none of that 
here. More than once I have said to myself, as the 
sun hid his face behind the dark ridge of mountain, 
leaving the trees sharply outlined against the clear 
sky — more than once I have repeated, “ Now I will 
sit in the doorway and enjoy the twilight.” But I had 
scarcely found and filled my pipe, and settled myself 
comfortably in doorway or hammock, when twilight 
was gone, and the fast-gathering darkness had hid the 
valleys, and was climbing the western slopes of the 
mountains. The stars, already out, shine with a 
liquid brilliancy that causes you to forget the absence 
of dusk, and you give yourself up to the contempla- 
tion of the lighted heavens, losing yourself in thought, 
wandering perhaps in meditation back to the land you 
have left, over which the same sky stretches and stars 
gleam ; but not with the clearness of the one, nor the 
soft brilliancy of the other — at least not at this present 
season. 
