The Project Gutenberg EBook of Following the Equator, Part 2
by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

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Title: Following the Equator, Part 2

Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Release Date: June 23, 2004 [EBook #5809]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, PART 2 ***

Produced by David Widger

FOLLOWING
THE EQUATOR
A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD
BY
MARK TWAIN
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS

Part 2

CHAPTER IX.

It is your human environment that makes climate.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

Sept. 15--Night. Close to Australia now. Sydney 50 miles distant.

That note recalls an experience. The passengers were sent for, to come
up in the bow and see a fine sight. It was very dark. One could not
follow with the eye the surface of the sea more than fifty yards in any
direction it dimmed away and became lost to sight at about that distance
from us. But if you patiently gazed into the darkness a little while,
there was a sure reward for you. Presently, a quarter of a mile away you
would see a blinding splash or explosion of light on the water--a flash
so sudden and so astonishingly brilliant that it would make you catch
your breath; then that blotch of light would instantly extend itself and
take the corkscrew shape and imposing length of the fabled sea-serpent,
with every curve of its body and the "break" spreading away from its
head, and the wake following behind its tail clothed in a fierce splendor
of living fire. And my, but it was coming at a lightning gait! Almost
before you could think, this monster of light, fifty feet long, would go
flaming and storming by, and suddenly disappear. And out in the distance
whence he came you would see another flash; and another and another and
another, and see them turn into sea-serpents on the instant; and once
sixteen flashed up at the same time and came tearing towards us, a swarm
of wigglin