rary erection, and with only the most primitive appliances in
addition to the telescope, still involves a very large amount of cramped
and motionless watching. He sighed as he thought of the physical fatigues
before him, stretched himself, and entered the observatory.

The reader is probably familiar with the structure of an ordinary
astronomical observatory. The building is usually cylindrical in shape,
with a very light hemispherical roof capable of being turned round from
the interior. The telescope is supported upon a stone pillar in the
centre, and a clockwork arrangement compensates for the earth's rotation,
and allows a star once found to be continuously observed. Besides this,
there is a compact tracery of wheels and screws about its point of
support, by which the astronomer adjusts it. There is, of course, a slit
in the movable roof which follows the eye of the telescope in its survey
of the heavens. The observer sits or lies on a sloping wooden arrangement,
which he can wheel to any part of the observatory as the position of the
telescope may require. Within it is advisable to have things as dark as
possible, in order to enhance the brilliance of the stars observed.

The lantern flared as Woodhouse entered his circular den, and the general
darkness fled into black shadows behind the big machine, from which it
presently seemed to creep back over the whole place again as the light
waned. The slit was a profound transparent blue, in which six stars shone
with tropical brilliance, and their light lay, a pallid gleam, along the
black tube of the instrument. Woodhouse shifted the roof, and then
proceeding to the telescope, turned first one wheel and then another, the
great cylinder slowly swinging into a new position. Then he glanced
through the finder, the little companion telescope, moved the roof a
little more, made some further adjustments, and set the clockwork in
motion. He took off his jacket, for the night was very hot, and pushed
into position the uncomfortable seat to which he was condemned for the
next four hours. Then with a sigh he resigned himself to his watch upon
the mysteries of space.

There was no sound now in the observatory, and the lantern waned steadily.
Outside there was the occasional cry of some animal in alarm or pain, or
calling to its mate, and the intermittent sounds of the Malay and Dyak
servants. Presently one of the men began a queer chanting song, in which
the others joined at inte