A Midsummer Trip to the Tropics.
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tings in the wind. And this sonorous medley, ever
growing louder, has rhythm,—a crescendo and diminuendo
timed by the steamer's regular swinging : like a great
Voice crying out, " Whoh-oh-oh ! whoh-oh-oh !" We
are nearing the life-centres of winds and currents. One
can hardly walk on deck against the ever-increasing
breath;—yet now the whole world is blue, — not the
least cloud is visible ; and the perfect transparency and
voidness about us make the immense power of this
invisible medium seem something ghostly and awful. . . .
The log, at every revolution, whines exactly like a little
puppy ;—one can hear it through all the roar fully forty
feet away.
... It is nearly sunset. Across the whole circle of the
Day we have been steaming south. Now the horizon is
gold green. All about the falling sun, this gold-green
light takes vast expansion. . . . Right on the edge of the
sea is a tall, gracious ship, sailing sunsetward. Catch-
ing the vapory fire, she seems to become a phantom,—a
ship of gold mist : all her spars and sails are luminous,
and look like things seen in dreams.
Crimsoning more and more, the sun drops to the
sea. The phantom ship approaches him,—touches the
curve of his glowing face, sails right athwart it! Oh,
the spectral splendor of that vision! The whole great
ship in full sail instantly makes an acute silhouette
against the monstrous disk, — rests there in the very
middle of the vermilion sun. His face crimsons high
above her top-masts, — broadens far beyond helm and
bowsprit. Against this weird magnificence, her whole
shape changes color : hull, masts, and sails turn black—
a greenish black.
Sun and ship vanish together in another minute.   Vio-
let the night comes ;  and the rigging of the foremast
cuts a cross upon the face of the moon.
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