XX.


In these tropic latitudes Night does not seem "to fall,"--to
descend over the many-peaked land: it appears to rise up, like an
exhalation, from the ground. The coast-lines darken first;--then
the slopes and the lower hills and valleys become shadowed;--
then, very swiftly, the gloom mounts to the heights, whose very
loftiest peak may remain glowing like a volcano at its tip for
several minutes after the rest of the island is veiled in blackness
and all the stars are out....

[Illustration: DEPARTURE OF STEAMER FOR FORT-DE-FRANCE.]

... Tropical nights have a splendor that seems strange to
northern eyes. The sky does not look so high--so far way as in
the North; but the stars are larger, and the luminosity greater.

With the rising of the moon all the violet of the sky flushes;--
there is almost such a rose-color as heralds northern dawn.

Then the moon appears over the mornes, very large, very bright--
brighter certainly than many a befogged sun one sees in northern
Novembers; and it seems to have a weird magnetism--this tropical
moon. Night-birds, insects, frogs,--everything that can sing,--
all sing very low on the nights of great moons. Tropical wood-