Hume Nisbet

The Land of the Hibiscus Blossom Hume Nisbet

A DARK night, as nights are in the tropics before the moon rises, in spite of those dense clusters of stars which stain, like milk-splashes, the intense blue-black of that vault above, or the more isolated worlds which hang, as if they were electric globes let down by invisible wires, from that vast ceiling, whose extremity the eye cannot reach! Very bright those irregularly hung lamps; very close-set, and sparkling, those clusters of gems beyond, very filmy the milk-stains upon that blue--black roof; but the space is too mighty to be illuminated even by those myriad lights, their effulgence is sucked up by the miles of atmosphere, and so on the shores, and in the jungle, darkness grapples with form and wins the battle; the eye looking up becomes dazed with that studded diamond vault and blinded to all beneath.