d and rayless sun drops into the glowing
waters, the choruses simultaneously join; and rushing from the woods,
and down the mountain steeps to the nearest shore, crowds of human
beings, at the same moment, appear and collect.

The inhabitants of this island, in form and face, do not misbecome the
clime and the country. With the vivacity of a Faun, the men combine the
strength of a Hercules and the beauty of an Adonis; and, as their more
interesting companions flash upon his presence, the least classical of
poets might be excused for imagining that, like their blessed Goddess,
the women had magically sprung from the brilliant foam of that ocean
which is gradually subsiding before them.

But sunset in this land is not the signal merely for the evidence of
human existence. At the moment that the Islanders, crowned with flowers,
and waving goblets and garlands, burst from their retreats, upon each
mountain peak a lion starts forward, stretches his proud tail, and,
bellowing to the sun, scours back exulting to his forest; immense
bodies, which before would have been mistaken for the trunks of trees,
now move into life, and serpents, untwining their green and glittering
folds, and slowly bending their crested heads around, seem proudly
conscious of a voluptuous existence; troops of monkeys leap from tree
to tree; panthers start forward, and alarmed, not alarming, instantly
vanish; a herd of milk-white elephants tramples over the back-ground of
the scene; and instead of gloomy owls and noxious beetles, to hail the
long-enduring twilight, from the bell of every opening flower beautiful
birds, radiant with every rainbow tint, rush with a long and living
melody into the cool air.

The twilight in this island is not that transient moment of unearthly
bliss, which, in our less favoured regions, always leaves us so
thoughtful and so sad; on the contrary, it lasts many hours, and
consequently the Islanders are neither moody nor sorrowful. As they
sleep during the day, four or five hours of 'tipsy dance and revelry'
are exercise and not fatigue. At length, even in this delightful region,
the rosy tint fades into purple, and the purple into blue; the white
moon gleams, and at length glitters; and the invisible stars first creep
into light, and then blaze into radiancy. But no hateful dews discolour
their loveliness! and so clear is the air, that instead of the false
appearance of a studded vault, the celestial bodies may be seen floa