west, and just as the sun goes down
this breaks up into wild streamers and shows deep ragged gulfs of livid
light between; there are glimpses of green and tawny-red and angry
orange flashing through, and then the veil of cloud blots out the light.
Yet it is still, there doesn't seem to be a ripple of wind, and the sea
has a curious oily calm upon it. Would you like to come along to the
bows after dinner? Don't, if you don't want to. It is more difficult to
get there than we expected, for though it looks so calm there is a big
swell, and we are rising and falling considerably on the smooth-backed
hillocks of water. Creep under these ropes and over this barricade. Then
we are free from all the entanglements. There are no dolphins now, but
there is a strange light dancing away like fire from the cutting bow; it
comes in streaks and flashes, one moment it seems as if it must be only
a reflection in the cut water, and the next one could swear there was a
real flash.

That is phosphorescence, which is very common in tropical seas,
sometimes the whole sea is alight with it. Look at that! It is a vivid
light like a wave of green fire, most beautiful! It is only, however,
where the ship strikes the water that we see it to-night. But sometimes,
though not often at this season of the year, the whole ocean seems to be
alight with it; it is the effect of innumerable millions of tiny
sea-creatures floating on the surface, though exactly why they do it at
one time more than another is yet unknown. The curious thing is that
there are so many different kinds of phosphorescence; there is the
bright fiery kind like this we are seeing now in flashes, and there is a
dull luminous kind which sailors call a "white sea." Then the whole sea
appears as white as milk, or, as someone who has seen it describes it,
as if it were changed to ice covered with a coating of snow. This was on
a dark night before the moon had risen, but when she did get up it all
disappeared and the sea looked much as usual, glittering only where the
beams struck it, except for odd patches of shiny light here and there,
and oddly enough exactly the same thing happened the following night.
I'm afraid we shan't be lucky enough to see that.

Is the motion making you uncomfortable? No? I'm glad of that; you're a
first-rate sailor. Let us go back to that jolly alcove at the end of the
smoking-room looking aft, where we can see the great green-black waves
rising suddenly behind