Almost as soon as the solar orb sank down below the horizon, which it did just before we turned away from the shore, the masts and spars of the _Josephine_, and each rope of her rigging, were all lit up by the sinking rays of light, their last despairing flash before their extinguishment in the ocean. At the same time, the hull of the vessel and every projecting point in the coast-line of the bay stood out in relief against the bright emerald-green tint of the sea. A moment afterwards, the darkness of night descended suddenly upon us like a vast curtain let down from heaven. But it was not dark long. As we passed our way up the climbing mountain path that led back to Mount Pleasant, our road--bordered on the one side by the dense vegetation of the forest, which seemed as black as ink now, and hedged in on the other by a precipice--was made clear by the light of the stars. These absolutely came out _en masse_ almost as we looked upwards at them. I noticed, too, that the sky seemed to be of some gauzy transparent material like ethereal azure, and did not exhibit that solid appearance it has in England of a ceiling with gold nails stuck in it here and there at random; for, the "lesser orbs of night" in the tropics look as if they were floating in a sea of vapour. They appear a regular galaxy of beauty and splendour, and so many glorious evidences of the great Creator's handiwork. Every now and then, also, the air around us was illuminated with sparks of green-coloured flame, while the woods seemed on fire from a thousand little jets that burst out every second from some new direction, lighting up the sombre gloom beneath the shade of the forest trees. One could almost imagine that there was a crowd of fairies going before us, each carrying a torch which he waved about, now above his head, and then around lower down, finally dashing it to the ground with those of his comrades, as is the custom at the torchlight processions of the students in Germany on some festal night. As dad and I trotted along towards home, the sparks of flame appeared now rising, now falling, vanishing here, reappearing there, finally converging into a globe, or "set piece," as at a pyrotechnic display, and then dispersing in spangles of coruscation like a fizzed-out firework.