we work our way westward. To keep the time
watches must be set back from five to twenty minutes
daily. New pastimes are now sought out and new
plays invented. Lovers whose acquaintance dates
from the Atlantic steamer settle down to business ;
sighing to the monotonous oscillations of the engine-
beam, watching the play of porpoises and the posing
and circling of the light-winged sea-birds, sweltering
fondly through the live-long day, fanning, sucking
oranges, drinking iced punches, pretending to read;
at sunset tracing weird pictures on the illuminated
horizon, buildinQ^ fantastic castles and fittinof to them
the gorgeous tracery of the iridescent west, sailing on
purple-misted lakes, and sitting by silver channels
through which, round leaden rocks and black crags,
the flowino; foam dashes at their feet, billino; and coo-
ing beneath fleecy foliage tender with amethyst, beryl,
and gold, filling the sky with yet other strange con-
ceits, monsters, and birds, and elfin images, and fairy
forms ; and as the palpitating twilight quickly deep-
ens, seek some quiet nook and gaze alternately at
stars and eyes, and holding willing hands, trace the
belt of Orion and draw pictures of earthly Edens,
Ah ! those sunsets at sea ! Of all the gorgeous displays of nature, nothing excels the rising and the setting of the sun upon a tropical sea. All day the benignant source of light pursues its tireless course, and as it sinks to rest, paints its good-night promise of return upon the cloudy canvas of the sky. Paus- ing on the ocean's brink, it turns, and flings back, in the plenitude of its power, a flood of colors which shames the puny efforts of art to imitate, and with its diverging rays metamorphoses the poised vapors into countless images, made real by the imagination of the observer. These vapors, beaten into being from the broad, watery expanse, rally from every quarter to curtain their author's decline, and catch the lustre of his departing glories. In this incomparable display of light, seen in its perfection only in the tropics, the
