156 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
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 
assistance, and preserved from certain death only 
by a few feet of thin board, which my own un¬ 
skilful hands had nailed together, a sense of the 
wakeful care of the Almighty has alone afforded 
composure; and when I have gazed on the mag¬ 
nificent and boundless assemblage of suns and 
worlds, whose rays have shed their lustre over the 
scene, and have remembered that they were form¬ 
ed, sustained, and controlled, in all their complex 
and mighty movements, by Him on whose care 1 
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, al¬ 
though they exhibit the wisdom and majesty of 
God, who “ bringeth out their host by number, 
and calleth them all by names, by the greatness of 
his might/’ impressed at the same time the con¬ 
viction that I was far from home, and those scenes 
which in memory were associated with a starlight 
evening in the land I had left. 
Many of the stars which I had beheld in Eng¬ 
land were visible here: the constellations of the 
zodiac, the splendours of Orion, and the mild 
twinkling of the Pleiades, were seen ; but the 
northern pole-star, the steady beacon of juvenile 
astronomical observation, the Great-bear, and 
much that was peculiar to a northern sky, were 
wanting. The effect of mental associations, con¬ 
nected with the appearance of the heavens, is sin¬ 
gular and impressive. During a voyage which I 
subsequently made to the Sandwich Islands, many 
a pleasant hour was spent in watching the rising 
