Some of our fellow passengers retire to the saloon as soon as the daylight fades, and stand with their noses flattened against the saloon window to see what follows. A scanty few of us, wrapped in shawls and cloaks (for it has grown chilly, even cold), gather upon the balcony, and watch for the illumination that is to come; and now a general exchange of civilities begins. One brings out a supply of quinine and administers small doses all round; another luxuriates in a constant shower of toilet vinegar; one walks up and down like a polar bear, diving now and then into the depths of his coat pockets, and produces lozenges, or sticky somethings that are a “sure antidote for malaria”--for we are in the very heart of its dominions, there is no doubt about that. The sunlight keeps the foul fiend down, hidden away beneath the rich, rank luxuriance that delights the eye with its tangled brilliance; but so soon as the sun goes down it rises, an invisible ghost, and mingles subtly with the air we breathe, and attacks us from our weakest points. Therefore we arm ourselves against it, and drench ourselves with antidotes, inside and out. One gentleman, whose sole object in life seems to be the nursing of his own infirmities, appears like a wild Indian clothed in his cabin blankets, with his nose buried in a huge bottle of camphorated spirits. I believe it is tied on like a horse-bag. Soon the huge pine knots are lighted on the top of the pilot house above our heads, and a brilliant flame flares out upon the night and, for a moment, every tree, every leaf, is clearly defined, like a bas-relief flung out from a world of darkness. The blaze flickers and flashes and fades, and, for a moment, we glide through leafy obscurity, which seems to have grown darker from the light that has departed. In silent majesty the grand old forest is gliding past us with muffled steps and hidden features--a shrouded army, marching through the silent night. Then, again, our pine fire lights up the skies, and illuminates the surrounding scenery with flashes of red and green and blue and yellow; then all commingling fade into one white glare; frightened birds are scared from their secret nests, and flutter, with melancholy cries, for a second above our heads, and then are swallowed up in the darkness. Now the blue flame flashes up to the great tree tops, then darts downward like a fiery serpent, and up some narrow winding water lane, and, for a second, a thousand weird forms float before our eyes, and change and fade and melt into nothingness. The negroes passing to and fro upon the lower deck, their black faces and shining eyes illumined by the red glare, look like gnomes or demons labouring in their enchanted fires.