impressions of space and depth and vastness,--the impressions of
sea and sky, which compel something akin to awe.



VII.


Morning over the Caribbean Sea,--a calm, extremely dark-blue sea.
There are lands in sight,--high lands, with sharp, peaked,
unfamiliar outlines.

We passed other lands in the darkness: they no doubt resembled
the shapes towering up around us now; for these are evidently
volcanic creations,--jagged, coned, truncated, eccentric. Far
off they first looked a very pale gray; now, as the light
increases, they change hue a little,--showing misty greens and
smoky blues. They rise very sharply from the sea to great
heights,--the highest point always with a cloud upon it;--they
thrust out singular long spurs, push up mountain shapes that have
an odd scooped-out look. Some, extremely far away, seem, as they
catch the sun, to be made of gold vapor; others have a madderish
tone: these are colors of cloud. The closer we approach them, the
more do tints of green make themselves visible. Purplish or
bluish masses of coast slowly develop green surfaces; folds and
wrinkles of land turn brightly verdant. Still, the color gleams
as through a thin fog.

... The first tropical visitor has just boarded our ship: a
wonderful fly, shaped like a common fly, but at least five times