We did not enter the harbour: but lay close off its gateway in safe deep water; fired our gun, and waited for the swarm of negro boats, which began to splash out to us through the darkness, the jabbering of their crews heard long before the flash of their oars was seen.
Most weird and fantastic are these nightly visits to West Indian harbours.

Above, the black mountain-depths, with their canopy of cloud, bright white against the purple night, hung with keen stars.

The moon, it may be on her back in the west, sinking like a golden goblet behind some rock-fort, half shrouded in black trees.

Below, a line of bright mist over a swamp, with the coco-palms standing up through it, dark, and yet glistering in the moon.

A light here and there in a house: another here and there in a vessel, unseen in the dark.