Griffin as I was I partook strongly of these common but delightful feelings I have attempted to describe, and in the change of climate and objects which every week’s sail brought forth, found much to interest and excite me—the shoal of flying-fish, shooting like a silver shower from the ocean, and skimming lightly over the crested waves; the gambols of the porpoise; the capture of a shark; fishing for bonetta off the bowsprit; a waterspout; speculations on a distant sail; her approach; the friendly greeting; the first and last!—were all objects and events pleasing in themselves, but doubly so when viewed in relation to the general monotony of a life at sea. Nothing, I think, delighted me more than contemplating the gorgeous sunsets, as we approached the equator. Here, in England, that luminary is a sickly affair, but particularly so when viewed through our commonly murky atmosphere, and there may be some truth in the Italian’s splenetic remark in favour of the superior warmth of the moon of his own country. But in the fervid regions of the tropics it is that we see the glorious emblem of creative power in all his pride and majesty, whether rising in his strength, “robed in flames and amber light,” ruling in meridian splendour, or sinking slowly to rest on his ocean couch of gold and crimson, in softened but ineffable refulgence; it is (but particularly in its parting aspect) an object eminently calculated to awaken the most elevated thoughts of the Creator’s power, mingled with a boundless admiration for the beauty of His works. Yes, neither language, painting, nor poetry, can adequately portray that most glorious of spectacles—a tropical sunset. Ensign O’Shaughnessy having sworn “by all the bogs in Kerry,” that he would put a brace of pistol-balls through Neptune, or Juno, or any “sa God” of them all, that should dare to lay hands upon him; and a determination to resist the initiatory process of ducking in bilge-water, and shaving with a rusty hoop, having manifested itself in other quarters, Captain McGuffin, glad of a pretext, and really apprehensive of mischief, had it intimated to the son of Saturn and his spouse, that their visit in crossing the line would be dispensed with. In so doing, it appears to me that he exercised a wise discretion; Neptune’s tomfooleries, at least when carried to their usual extent, being one of those ridiculous customs “more honoured in the breach than in the observance;” one which may well be allowed to sleep with “Maid Marian,” “the Lord of Misrule” and other samples of the “wisdom of our ancestors,” who were emphatically but “children of a larger growth,” to whom horse play and “tinsel” were most attractive. On crossing the equator, however, the old but more harmless joke of exhibiting the _line_ through a telescope was played off on one greenhorn, sufficiently soft to admit of its taking effect.