410 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
being reflected from the surface of the other^ gave a 
correspondence to the appearance of both^ and almost 
forced the illusion on the mind^ that our little bark was 
suspended in the centre of two united hemispheres. 
The perfect quietude that surrounded us was equally 
impressive. No objects were visible but the lamps of 
heaven, and the phosphoric fires of the deep. The 
silence was only broken by the murmurs of the breeze 
passing through our matting sails, or the dashing of the 
spray from the bows of our boat, excepting at times, 
when we heard, or fancied we heard, the blowing of a 
shoal of porpoises, or the more alarming sounds of a 
spouting whale. 
At a season such as this, when I have reflected on our 
actual situation, so far removed, in the event of any 
casualty, from human observation and from human aid^ 
and preserved from certain death only by a few ffeet of 
thin board, which my own unskilful hands had nailed 
together; a sense of the wakeful care of the Almighty 
has alone afforded composure; and when I have gazed 
on the magnificent and boundless assemblage of suns and 
worlds, whose rays have shed their lustre over the scene, 
and have remembered that they were formed, sustained, 
and controlled, in all their complex and mighty move¬ 
ments, by Him on whose care I could alone rely, I have 
almost involuntarily uttered the exclamation of the 
psalmist, Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of 
him 
The contemplation of the heavenly bodies, although 
they exhibit the wisdom and majesty of God, who ^^bring- 
eth out their host by number, and calleth them all by 
names, by the greatness of his might,"*’ and by whom also 
the very hairs of the head are all numbered, impressed at 
