m the mountains, making it much nicer than
it had been in the earlier part of the day. Skirting the bay, we could
see the _Josephine_ in the distance gradually being shut in by a halo of
haze, a thick mist generally rising up from the sea at nightfall in the
tropics through the evaporation of the water or the difference of
temperature between it and the atmospheric air.

If our ride out to Grenville Bay had been jolly in the morning, our
journey back was simply splendid.

Almost as soon as the solar orb sank down below the horizon, which it
did just before we turned away from the shore, the masts and spars of
the _Josephine_, and each rope of her rigging, were all lit up by the
sinking rays of light, their last despairing flash before their
extinguishment in the ocean. At the same time, the hull of the vessel
and every projecting point in the coast-line of the bay stood out in
relief against the bright emerald-green tint of the sea. A moment
afterwards, the darkness of night descended suddenly upon us like a vast
curtain let down from heaven.

But it was not dark long.

As we passed our way up the climbing mountain path that led back to
Mount Pleasant, our road--bordered on the one side by the dense
vegetation of the forest, which seemed as black as ink now, and hedged
in on the other by a precipice--was made clear by the light of the
stars. These absolutely came out _en masse_ almost as we looked upwards
at them. I noticed, too, that the sky seemed to be of some gauzy
transparent material like ethereal azure, and did not exhibit that solid
appearance it has in England of a ceiling with gold nails stuck in it
here and there at random; for, the "lesser orbs of night" in the tropics
look as if they were floating in a sea of vapour. They appear a regular
galaxy of beauty and splendour, and so many glorious evidences of the
great Creator's handiwork.

Every now and then, also, the air around us was illuminated with sparks
of green-coloured flame, while the woods seemed on fire from a thousand
little jets that burst out every second from some new direction,
lighting up the sombre gloom beneath the shade of the forest trees.

One could almost imagine that there was a crowd of fairies going before
us, each carrying a torch which he waved about, now above his head, and
then around lower down, finally dashing it to the ground with those of
his comrades, as is the custom at the torchlight processions of the
students