Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/15

Rh Its dark blue waves heaved heavily—a few wandering sea gulls roamed over the face of the deep, and the sun beamed upon the waters with a warmer and a brighter ray.

From hence to the Islands the traveller must content himself with the few objects of natural history, which present themselves. To watch the grampus, the porpoise, or perhaps the great white shark playing around the vessel and darting before its bow as if offering to guide its course through the trackless deep, are the daily amusements of every landsman in these seas; and with a few flocks of stormy petrels, a wandering albatross, or that most beautiful of all the finny tribe the dorado, relentlessly pursuing its unhappy victim the flying fish, they constitute almost the only novelties.

But at sea the every day occurrences of nature seem to exhibit themselves in new forms, and acquire a freshness which clothes them with a new interest. Oftentimes will the sun set with a peculiar splendour, pouring a flood of glory over the whole horizon, and as he dips beneath the waters the reflection of his beams clothe the western clouds in a thousand different hues, abundantly supplying to the fancy golden lakes and palaces adorned with all the magic tints of a fairy creation. Nor is night without its charms. A large vessel with all her sails set, gliding gently over the bosom of the ocean. Her canvass scarcely swelled by the light