From Madeira to Rio it had been found impossible to sleep in the bunks because of the stifling heat. Hammocks were accordingly swung amidships, in which some sleep was possible for the occupants of the cabins, while those of the forecastle stored themselves on the deck in almost any position offering a breeze and a protection from being washed overboard. These restful open air positions offer a splendid opportunity during the sleepless hours to study and admire the beauty and strangeness of the southern sky. From the time when we crossed the equator to our present position we have been intensely interested in the new constellations which have glided over the southern horizon, while in the north we have been watching, with some regret, the sinking and disappearance of the stars and groups with which we have been familiar from the time of our infancy. This vanishing of the Pole Star, and the many old friends in the heavens brings to us a vivid impression of the vast distance which we have traversed from our native lands. The new firmament has many charms, but it takes time to admire its complex splendour. The grouping of the large stars, the scattered nebulæ rivalling in lustre the Milky Way, and the unfilled spaces, remarkable for their extreme darkness, give the southern heavens a peculiar aspect. With this dome of tropical blue relieved by the new heavenly bodies above, and with a breakneck pitching and tossing at every plunge of the vessel, one is more apt to fall into an admiration of Nature than into a profound sleep. But this easy life on deck has also its drawbacks at times when one’s calm, dreamy philosophy is suddenly and rudely interrupted. Jack runs across the deck and presently stumbles in a heap over some sleeper when a series of grunts and something worse fills the night air with another spirit. On November fourth, for a short time, the low shore-line of the Island of Santo Catherina was dimly visible under a blue mist in the west. At about this time we also saw the first Cape pigeons, stormy petrels, and albatrosses, and a few days later when there was no land in view an off-shore wind brought us some forms of land life. Among these were butterflies, moths, various birds with beautiful plumage, and some troublesome flies. We met only one voyager on this lonely course, a Brazilian coaster. She was built after a model of the last century, but, having every rag set which could draw, she came through the rolling blue waters with a grace and picturesqueness that would do justice to a modern yacht. We enjoyed the sight immensely as she came towards us, ploughing through hills of foam, her blunt prow buried in white spray, her huge square stern rising and falling nimbly out of one trough into another. It was as if one of the explorers who had gone before us, a Drake or an Anson, who were at once pirates and explorers, had suddenly dropped in our path to examine the men and the methods of less ambitious followers.