Soon we were in the Tropic of Cancer. It seemed like a new world. Never before had we looked upon such a sky. There was no stratification in the clouds, and nothing of the cumulus formation; but the surface of the sky was composed of innumerable fleecy things moving in the gentlest manner, as though they feared to disturb slumber. The gentle motion was just the thing to induce sleep. As we thought of the turbulent state of the elements the day before, the sky now looked like an army which had been dismissed. It seemed as though there was not wind enough to form a large cloud. The hammock was made fast, one end of it to an iron belaying-pin in the saddle of the mizzen mast, in the shade of the spanker, and the other end to the rail. A hammock meets you at every point with the needed support. It brought strange sensations of rest to lie and listen to the plashing of the water against the sides of the ship. The measured roll of the vessel now was pleasurable. There was an easy swing to the hammock, as though a considerate hand were keeping it moving. How much better this rest and peace than travelling in Switzerland, or being pent up in the Azores, or wandering through Italy, if one needs rest and at the same time change of place! To an overworked brain here is seclusion indeed. There is here no post-office, with its delivery three times a day, so welcome on shore; no newspapers; no door bell; no agents soliciting attention to new works, and begging you to put your name down and accept a copy, as though you had subscribed; no succession of engagements;
“No cares to break the long repose;”
no crowd of passengers, nor daily calculation as to the day of arrival; nor jar of machinery, as in a steamboat, making you feel, day and night, that somebody is laboriously at work; and, to crown all, seemingly no end to your vacation.
But those clouds in the tropics! You had thought, perhaps, heretofore, that only at night the heavens declare the glory of God. Perhaps you find that the book which you brought on deck to read, but which you have no desire to open, may have in it a fly-leaf, on which, as you lie in the hammock, with one knee raised for a writing-table, you may indite these dreamy lines:—
THE CLOUDS IN THE TROPICS.
Did we not think o’er ocean’s restless plain
To see embattled hosts, and feel the affray?
But lo! a truce is here, and gala-day;
Nor lines of march, nor rank and file remain.
The fleecy clouds move o’er the tranquil plain,