cliffs half lost in the coming darkness.
Beneath us on both sides the ocean spread out far end wide to where the
darkness closed in the scene. Opposite us a barrier of thick clouds
like a wall, surmounted all along its line with projections like so many
towers, bastions, and battlements, rose up from the sea as if to stop
our advance. A few minutes afterwards we were in the midst of this
cloudy barrier, surrounded with darkness, which the vapours of the night
increased. We heard no sound. The noise of the waves breaking on the
shores of England had ceased, and our position had for some time cut us
off from all the sounds of earth."

In an hour the Straits of Dover were cleared, the lights of Calais shone
out toward the voyagers, and the sound of the town drums rose up toward
them. "Darkness was now complete," continues the writer, "and it was
only by the lights, sometimes isolated, sometimes seen in masses, and
showing themselves far down on the earth beneath us, that we could form
a guess of the countries we traversed, or of the towns and villages
which appeared before us every moment. The whole surface of the earth
for many leagues round showed nothing but scattered lights, and the
face of the earth seemed to rival the vault of heaven with starry fires.
Every moment in the earlier part of the night before men had betaken
themselves to repose, clusters of lights appeared indicating large
centres of population.

"Those on the horizon gave us the notion of a distant conflagration. In
proportion as we approached them, these masses of lights appeared to
increase, and to cover a greater space, until, when right over them,
they seemed to divide themselves into different parts, to stretch out in
long streets, and to shine in starry quadrangles round the squares, so
that we could see the exact plan of each city, given as on a small map.
It would be difficult to give an idea of what sort of effect such a
scene in such circumstances produces. To find oneself transported in
the darkness of night, in the midst of vast solitudes of air, unknown,
unperceived, in secret and in silence, exploring territories, traversing
kingdoms, watching towns which come into view, and pass out of it
before one can examine them in detail--these circumstances are enough
in themselves to render sublime a science which, independent of these
adjuncts, would be so interesting. If you add to this the uncertainty
which, increasing as we went on into the n