LUMINOUS TRACKS IN THE SEA. 267 March 16. Yesterday the sun was vertical, to-day we have passed him, and, after long witnessing his daily course through the north, again behold him, as in our native country, to the south of us. We have not been more than ten months absent from England, yet this is the fourth time that we have come under his vertical rays. The sun, however, has not been permitted "to smite us by day, nor the moon by night;" the stars have not "fought against us in their courses;" "the bands of Orion" have not been loosed to destroy us by storms, nor have "the sweet influences of Pleiades" been bound, to withhold blessings, by land and by sea, from us. (S. lat. 0° 55′ 36′′. W. long. 149° 46′). This track of ocean is remarkably full of the nocturnal spangles which we have noticed elsewhere. Millions of these efflorescences of flame, as they seem to the eye, pass the sides of the vessel every moment, and form in her wake a train of brilliancy such as no comet, in its perihelium, ever drew "o'er half the heavens." Beautiful illuminations of the same kind, whatever be their nature, are frequently seen at a great depth in the clear water, which, in the night-time, becomes jet black. Often, through this dark but limpid medium, have we amused ourselves by tracking the routes of large fishes, such as porpoises or sharks, gleaming along in lines of light beneath the abyss, itself invisible with gloom. These, like coruscations of a sub-marine aurora, might sometimes be discovered at far distances, shooting and disappearing, slowly or suddenly, according to the courses of the sea-monsters, each of which, like the leviathan of scripture, "maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary." Job xli. 32. March 17. The minutest circumstances relative to animal life, even in its lowest classes, are worthy of record. Last night, about ten o'clock, hundreds of cockroaches issued, at the same instant, from all their hiding-places in the cabin, and began to fly about. In the course of a few minutes they all retired again, without assigning any reason (which we could understand) for their spontaneous and simultaneous irruption or retreat. Some on board said it was a sign of rain, but none fell in the night, nor is there yet any less ambiguous sign of such downfall in the sky. We crossed the line about two o'clock this morning, and find ourselves again in our own hemisphere, which, like every thing in any way associated with the subject, reminds us of home. 268 FIRST APPEARANCE OF HAWAII. March 20. (N. lat. 5° 40′. W. long. 149° 14′.) At noon we had a strong squall, accompanied by heavy rain from the east. Since the evening when the cockroaches swarmed out of their holes in the cabin, to take an airing by candle-light, and retired as unaccountably as they came, the weather has certainly changed from almost unbroken calm and drought to fits of wind and showers, with sluggish intervals, when air and ocean seem alike inert and impotent to speed our way. March 26. After a continuance of the same weather during the last five days (though with more frequent gusts and showers), as we had previously experienced, last night the gale blew very hard, with almost constant rain, but our small bark suffered no damage. N. lat. 15° 43'. W. long. 152° 35'. March 28. At three o'clock, p. m., land appeared right ahead, that is, wearing west, distance about twenty leagues; and, though clouds covered the highest mountains, the lower ranges, to a great extent, were distinctly visible. We could not doubt, from our observations, that this was one of the Sandwich Islands, our north latitude being 19° 23′, and west longitude 154° 5'. This was a joyful sight to all on board. Towards evening we lost it again, the fog being considerable; but the loom of land was, nevertheless, cognizable by the thick dark clouds overhanging it. March 29. Having lain-to in the night, at break of day the land was clearly seen about fifteen miles off, though the eminences were still shrouded in thick vapor. As we approached, the coast seemed to be rock-bound, the waves dashing at the bottom of the cliffs. These might be a hundred feet in average height; while beyond them the land. sloped gradually up to ten times that elevation, green, and occasionally studded with clumps of trees. This declivity was rent into ravines, opening towards the sea, and manifestly furrowed by fierce cataracts in rainy seasons. When we had proceeded about ten miles along the coast, its character changed into sterner magnificence, the cliffs rising to five hundred feet, and being more deeply indented with vast chasms, of which the black and almost perpendicular fronts were brilliantly enlivened with numerous cascades, rolling, as their course lay, over rocky beds, oblique or abrupt, in all the forms that water can assume rushing through steep or straitened channels. These falls are |