I put on my shawl and hat--I call them mine--and, parting with Mrs. Richards at her own cabin door, went on to the poop by one of the ladders conducting to that raised platform from the quarter deck. It was a very fine glorious night. The moon rode high, and under her the sea lay brightly silvered. The sky was rich with stars, some of them a delicate green and two or three of them rose, and the firmament in which they sparkled had a soft and flowing look as though the velvet dusk were liquid. The ship was clothed with canvas to the starry altitude of her trucks. The swelling sails reflected the light of the moon, and their gleam was as that of snow against the dark sky as they rose with an appearance of cloud-like floating one above another, dwindling until the topmost sail seemed no more than a fragment of fleecy mist wan in the dusky heights. There was a pleasant breeze, and it blew over the rail cool with dew and sweet with that flavourless freshness of ocean air that is to the nostrils as a glass of water from a pure crystal spring is to the mouth. I stood at the corner of the poop near the head of the ladder in the shadow made by the great sail called the mainsail, one wing or extremity of which was stretched a long way beyond the shrouds. Many passengers were on the poop; they were whitened by the moonlight, and as they moved here and there their figures showed as though beheld through a very delicate silver mist, but their shadows swayed black and firm from their feet upon the white planks. The forecastle of the ship was crowded with emigrants. The moonshine was raining down in silver upon that part of the vessel, and the people had a ghostly appearance, every face whitened, and their clothes white as though they had been powdered, as they stood staring across the dark sweep of sea upon the right-hand bow of the ship.