opened new
constellations to our view. We feel an indescribable sensation, when, on
approaching the equator, and particularly on passing from one hemisphere
to the other, we see those stars which we have contemplated from our
infancy, progressively sink, and finally disappear. Nothing awakens in
the traveller a livelier remembrance of the immense distance by which he
is separated from his country, than the aspect of an unknown firmament.
The grouping of the stars of the first magnitude, some scattered nebulae
rivalling in splendour the milky way, and tracts of space remarkable for
their extreme blackness, give a particular physiognomy to the southern
sky. This sight fills with admiration even those, who, uninstructed in
the branches of accurate science, feel the same emotions of delight in
the contemplation of the heavenly vault, as in the view of a beautiful
landscape, or a majestic river. A traveller has no need of being a
botanist to recognise the torrid zone on the mere aspect of its
vegetation; and, without having acquired any notion of astronomy, he
feels he is not in Europe, when he sees the immense constellation of the
Ship, or the phosphorescent clouds of Magellan, arise on the horizon.
The heaven and the earth, in the equinoctial regions, assume an exotic
character."

"The sunsets in the Eastern Archipelago," says H. O. Forbes,[64] "were
scenes to be remembered for a lifetime. The tall cones of Sibissie and
Krakatoa rose dark purple out of an unruffled golden sea, which
stretched away to the south-west, where the sun went down; over the
horizon gray fleecy clouds lay in banks and streaks, above them pale
blue lanes of sky, alternating with orange bands, which higher up gave
place to an expanse of red stretching round the whole heavens.
Gradually as the sun retreated deeper and deeper, the sky became a
marvellous golden curtain, in front of which the gray clouds coiled
themselves into weird forms before dissolving into space...."

THE POLES

The Arctic and Antarctic regions have always exercised a peculiar
fascination over the human mind. Until now every attempt to reach the
North Pole has failed, and the South has proved even more inaccessible.
In the north, Parry all but reached lat. 83; in the south no one has
penetrated beyond lat. 71.11. And yet, while no one can say what there
may be round the North Pole, and some still imagine that open water
might be found there, we can picture to ourselves the ext