Dr. Collingwood writes (without, if I remember
right, having seen it himself) in his charming book, A Naturalist's
Rambles in the China Seas. Our friend described the appearance as
that of a sea of shining snow rather than of milk, heaving gently
beneath a starlit but moonless sky. A bucket of water, when taken
up, was filled with the same half-luminous whiteness, which stuck to
its sides when the water was drained off. The captain of the
Indiaman was well enough aware of the rarity of the sight to call
all the passengers on deck to see what they would never see again;
and on asking our captain, he assured us that he had not only never
seen, but never heard of the appearance in the West Indies. One
curious fact, then, was verified that night.

The next morning gave us unmistakable tokens that we were nearing
the home of the summer and the sun. A north-east wind, which would
in England keep the air at least at freezing in the shade, gave here
a temperature just over 60 degrees; and gave clouds, too, which made
us fancy for a moment that we were looking at an April thunder sky,
soft, fantastic, barred, and feathered, bright white where they
ballooned out above into cumuli, rich purple in their massive
shadows, and dropping from their under edges long sheets of inky
rain. Thanks to the brave North-Easter, we had gained in five days
thirty degrees of heat, and had slipped out of December into May.
The North-Easter, too, was transforming itself more and more into
the likeness of a south-west wind; say, rather, renewing its own
youth, and becoming once more what it was when it started on its
long journey from the Tropics towards the Pole. As it rushes back
across the ocean, thrilled and expanded by the heat, it opens its
dry and thirsty lips to suck in the damp from below, till, saturated
once more with steam, it will reach the tropic as a gray rain-laden
sky of North-East Trade.

So we slipped on, day after day, in a delicious repose which yet was
not monotonous. Those, indeed, who complain of the monotony of a
voyage must have either very few resources in their own minds, or
much worse company than we had on board the Shannon. Here, every
hour brought, or might bring, to those who wished, not merely
agreeable conversation about the Old World behind us, but fresh
valuable information about the New World before us. One morning,
for instance, I stumbled on a merchant returning to