324 
THE BREAK OF DAY. — THE WIND. — THE SKY. 
6 July, 
countries. Yet the approach of daylight in the interior regions of 
this continent, is not totally devoid of pleasing effects ; and, though 
less glowing and less enlivened by variety of hues and forms, it 
offers to an admiring eye a beauty of a more quiet and modest kind. 
While watching the cold darkness of night, the eastern sky becomes 
less obscure, a faint light gradually increases ; the stars seem to fade 
away, though the earth still continues in night ; a warm glow is 
perceptible, and soon spreads itself over the vault of heaven ; the 
trees along the horizon become visible, and, backed by the sky, the 
upper branches of those which are nearer, are seen more distinctly ; 
the landscape begins to show its outline ; the light has reached the 
west; the forms of objects are visible, but as yet, present a painting 
in one color only, a sombre brown, equally strong in the distance 
and in the foreground ; the whole atmosphere is illumined, and re- 
flects its light upon the earth ; the farthest verge of the plain becomes 
fainter and recedes, while the various clumps of trees follow to their 
place in the picture, and, assuming a just keeping, change their 
brown, for the less dubious colors of day ; the azure of the sky is 
every where suffused with a warmer light ; Nature is awake ; and, 
unattended by cloud or vapor, the sun himself is seen rising above 
the horizon in noontide brilliancy. 
Whatever wind may blow during the day, in the countries of 
the Interior, it most frequently subsides at sunset. This circum- 
stance, so fortunate for those who sleep in the open air, was more 
especially favorable to my astronomical observations, as it admitted of 
using the artificial horizon without any kind of covering to protect 
the surface of the mercury from agitation by currents of air, of which 
it is exceedingly susceptible. 
At this season of the year, the sky, either by night or by day, is 
seldom veiled by a cloud ; nor is the slightest dezv ever felt but in the 
time of the rains, when, however, it falls very copiously. Though 
in the Transgariepine the days in the winter months, of which we were 
now in the coldest, are very pleasant, and sometimes even hot ; the 
nights are cold j and our feelings, as well as the thermometer, indicate 
that the temperature of the air is near the freezing point. On most 
