THE CHARMS OF NIGHT. 
15 
who has learned to mount a vessel’s rigging. In the 
afternoon it is an especially pleasant post ; for the 
broad shadow of the topsail begins to fall aft, and 
the elevated solitude is screened from the rays of the 
too fervid sun. 
Night, too, had charms of its own. The pleasant 
breath of the steady trade-wind blew with a refresh- 
ing coolness over the level sea, breaking its surface 
into ripples and wavelets, that washed, with a whisper- 
ing sound, along the counter of the ship. The ladies 
would linger on the quarter-deck till late ; and 
cheerful conversation, innocent mirth, and mutual 
congratulations and anticipations connected with the 
land whose distance was diminishing with winged 
speed, beguiled the hours. The moon, walking in 
brightness,” poured down a flood of soft light on the 
ship and the wide sea around, putting out the stars 
above, but making amends by the thousand mimic 
ones that were momentarily forming below by the 
reflection of her silver face in the dancing, breaking 
wave-crests. Sometimes we watched the phospho- 
rescent flashings of the sea, and the brilliant sparks 
that went and came among the curdled milkiness 
beneath the stern, stirred and whirled by the action 
of the rudder; or sometimes we would w^alk into 
the forepart of the ship, and see the same curious 
phenomena to still more advantage, where the bows 
dived into the sea, and threw off the luminous foam 
on either side. Or from the same spot we would 
gaze aloft, and admire the swelling canvass, partly 
white as snow in the glancing moonbeam, partly in 
deepest shadow ; while each sail stretched and bellied 
