We had a quiet sea, and continuing to sail near the coast, were on the morning of the 2d of December off Port Alexander,--a settlement near Great Fish Bay,--which is at the mouth of the Nourse River, between the sixteenth and seventeenth degree of south latitude, and a little north of the latitude of the island of St. Helena. Directly on passing this port we steamed near the shore of Cimbeba,--a barren and sandy desert, which stretches along the entire coast, reaching below the tropic of Capricorn,--or from Great Fish Bay to Santa Cruz, a place on the coast of Damara; making a distance of nine hundred miles, where neither fresh water, nor any vegetation can be found. The shores are very bold, and their sandy banks deeply and peculiarly seamed, as though gullied by heavy rains. On the 4th we outstripped the sun; passing that luminary in twenty-two degrees and fifty-eight minutes of south latitude. A little before twelve o’clock of that day, our kind and courteous captain, always ready and happy to add to our comfort, pleasure, and stock of information, called us to come on the quarter-deck and see how thoroughly attenuated and shadowless we had become. Readily obeying the summons, we were directly walking under the full rays of a mid-day sun unattended by our life-long shadows; and although aware of the reason for the absence of our old companions, the thing seemed so strangely peculiar that we could not resist the continual impulse to look searchingly, first on one side, and then on the other, and finally down to our feet, in order to see if there was not a little remnant or line of our old friends still remaining. Not being successful in this endeavor, we were obliged to confess to some little sympathy with poor Peter Schlemyhl, and a readiness to borrow his seven-leagued boots, that we might go quickly in pursuit of our lost umbras. While nearing the sun the weather was much cooler,--the mercury falling to 72°,--and, from experience, we became agreeably aware that his perpendicular rays are less powerful than when they are cast somewhat obliquely upon the earth. We now encountered head winds, together with a very rough sea,--the effect of a gale which had just prevailed along the coast; and again old Neptune made faces at some of us, while at others he actually pulled his beard and shook his trident, disagreeably reminding us that he was still ruler of the ocean, and did not mean to be forgotten.