Both he and the first mate, however, said that they had never heard of it, and the second mate was the only one to whom it did not appear entirely unknown.

With his help, we really did discover in the spangled firmament four stars, which had something of the form of a somewhat crooked cross, but were certainly not remarkable in themselves, nor did they excite the least enthusiasm amongst us.

A most magnificent spectacle was, on the contrary, formed by Orion, Jupiter, and Venus; the latter, indeed, shone so brilliantly that her gleams formed a silver furrow across the waves.
The great frequency of falling stars is another fact that I cannot corroborate.

They are, perhaps, more frequent than in cold climates, but are far from being as common as is said: and as for their size, I saw only one which surpassed ours; and this appeared about three times as large as an ordinary star.
For some days also we had now seen the Cape, or Magellan's Clouds, and also the so-called Black Cloud.

The first are bright, and, like the Milky Way, are formed of numberless small stars, invisible to the naked eye; the latter presents a black appearance, and is said to be produced by the absence of all stars whatever from this part of the heavens.
All these different signs prepared us for the most interesting moment of our voyage--namely, passing the line.
On the 29th of August, at 10 o'clock P.M., we saluted the southern hemisphere for the first time.