longer separated by more than a couple of inches. The space between the beard and these two beams was as brilliant as the disk of the meteor. The trail terminated in a fine pale red fringe, forming a rounded rather than pointed beard.
As we advanced southward the lovely constellation of the Southern Cross and the three nebulae called the Clouds of Magellan became more and more visible, and their height above the southern horizon increased with the latitude. Two of the nebulae are luminous, and are without doubt composed of a great number of stars, so many and so remote that, like the Milky Way, they give only a faint light, forming apparently light clouds, whence their name. The third is dark, and is probably the entire absence of all light. I contemplated them daily with admiration and astonishment. Some writers claim that the constellations of the southern hemisphere are more brilliant than those of the northern: the sight of so many new stars, which one had never dreamed of seeing, and the disappearance of the greater part of those that one has watched since childhood, naturally inspire a variety of strange sensations.
The brilliant phosphorescent light, resembling the tail of a comet, which on dark nights marked the track of our vessel, amused us very often, and we were thrown into astonishment and admiration at the reflection that, as is claimed, it is produced by myriads of tiny insects, possessing the same light-giving power as the glow-worm and fire-fly.
On the 3d of March distant thunder was heard rolling on all sides, and in the evening we had a terrifying hailstorm. On the I Ith, a fight between a band of porpoises and some birds of the size of a goose amused us a good deal. The birds persecuted the fish outrageously, darting upon them with the swiftness of lightning whenever they showed themselves on the surface or leaped out of