We have crossed the sun and he is at last south of us and casts shadows in the opposite direction from yesterday. We haven’t had the racks on the table for two days, which means a phenomenally smooth sea; the ocean often appears quiet enough to the eye, but there is nearly always a swell present that would play havoc with glasses and bottles. This is the first time that we haven’t used the fiddles since leaving New York. Latitude, 10° 44′ north; longitude, 122° 35′ west. +August 28+ Another very hot day and night, but not comparable with yesterday, when a draught of air out of the sails was more like a blast from Tophet than a breath from this great ocean. It was possible to get considerable sleep last night, and on the whole we did very well; for even if we made only seventy-five miles, it was in the right direction. During the whole of the first watch last night there wasn’t even a suspicion of wind and the silence that reigned was wonderfully impressive, so that we were deeply awed by the solemnity of the scene. All about the zenith was a large area of perfectly clear sky thickly dusted with stars that shone with a calm splendor not to be seen except near the equator. “By night those soft, lasceevious stars Leer from those velvet skies,” saith Kipling. About 45° from the zenith a mist commenced, thickening gradually into clouds dense and black, their lofty cones and dark abysses brought forth with startling clearness by great ceaseless surges of heat-lightning that enveloped the horizon like undulating, violet flames. On board no sound broke the stillness, which was that of the Arctic icefields, for minutes at a time, except now and then the creak of a yard that broke harshly on the ear, or the pleasant sound of a light swell at long intervals that chuckled to itself under the counter; and we floated motionless upon the deep, wrapped in an absolute and breathless calm. And the golden, bell-like tones of the exquisite _andante_ from the Sonata Appassionata seemed to dwell in the air; tones which Beethoven said was his own conception of the music of the spheres, for the movement occurred to him one night in the hills, while contemplating the stellar glories of a clear, tranquil sky. Oh, what majesty in such a night! Oh, the solemn grandeur of this phase of nature! Indeed, it is difficult to say which exerts the more powerful influence over the mind: a gale of wind or a great, soundless calm, when every star in the firmament seems reflected in the motionless sea.