larger. His body is a beautiful shining black; his wings seem
ribbed and jointed with silver, his head is jewel-green, with
exquisitely cut emeralds for eyes.

Islands pass and disappear behind us. The sun has now risen
well; the sky is a rich blue, and the tardy moon still hangs in
it. Lilac tones show through the water. In the south there are
a few straggling small white clouds,--like a long flight of
birds. A great gray mountain shape looms up before us. We are
steaming on Santa Cruz.

The island has a true volcanic outline, sharp and high: the
cliffs sheer down almost perpendicularly. The shape is still
vapory, varying in coloring from purplish to bright gray; but
wherever peaks and spurs fully catch the sun they edge themselves
with a beautiful green glow, while interlying ravines seem filled
with foggy blue.

As we approach, sun lighted surfaces come out still more
luminously green. Glens and sheltered valleys still hold blues
and grays; but points fairly illuminated by the solar glow show
just such a fiery green as burns in the plumage of certain
humming-birds. And just as the lustrous colors of these birds
shift according to changes of light, so the island shifts colors
here and there,--from emerald to blue, and blue to gray.... But
now we are near: it shows us a lovely heaping of high bright
hills in front,--with a further coast-line very low and long and
verdant, fringed with a white beach, and tufted with spidery
palm-crests. Immediately opposite, other palms are poised; their
trunks look like pillars of unpolished silver, their leaves