and the orange chimney,--the bright deck-lines, and the snowy
rail,--cut against the colored light in almost dazzling relief.
Though the sun shines hot the wind is cold: its strong irregular
blowing fans one into drowsiness. Also the somnolent chant of the
engines--_do-do, hey! do-do, hey!_--lulls to sleep.

..Towards evening the glaucous sea-tint vanishes,--the water
becomes blue. It is full of great flashes, as of seams opening
and reclosing over a white surface. It spits spray in a
ceaseless drizzle. Sometimes it reaches up and slaps the side of
the steamer with a sound as of a great naked hand, The wind waxes
boisterous. Swinging ends of cordage crack like whips. There
is an immense humming that drowns speech,--a humming made up of
many sounds: whining of pulleys, whistling of riggings, flapping
and fluttering of canvas, roar of nettings in the wind. And this
sonorous medley, ever growing louder, has rhythm,--a _crescendo_
and _diminuendo_ timed by the steamer's regular swinging: like a
great Voice crying out, "Whoh-oh-oh! whoh-oh-oh!" We are nearing
the life-centres of winds and currents. One can hardly walk on
deck against the ever-increasing breath;--yet now the whole world
is blue,--not the least cloud is visible; and the perfect
transparency and voidness about us make the immense power of this
invisible medium seem something ghostly and awful.... The log, at
every revolution, whines exactly like a little puppy;--one can
hear it through all the roar fully forty feet away.

...It is nearly sunset. Across the whole circle of the Day we
have been steaming south. Now the horizon is gold green. All
about the falling sun, this gold-green light takes vast
expansion. ... Right on the edge of the sea is a tall, gracious