The atmosphere was dull and hazy, and even in our own raw
fatherland the sky could not have been so overcast, except upon some
days in November. Every evening the clouds were piled upon one
another in such a way that we were continually expecting to see a
water-spout; it was generally not before midnight that the heavens
would gradually clear up, and allow us to admire the beautiful and
dazzling constellations of the South.
The captain told us that this was the fourteenth voyage he had made
to the Brazils, during which time he had always found the heat very
easily borne, and had never seen the sky otherwise than dull and
lowering. He said that this was occasioned by the damp, unhealthy
coast of Guinea, the ill effects of which were perceptible much
further than where we then were, although the distance between us
was 350 miles.
In the tropics the quick transition from day to night is already
very perceptible; 35 or 40 minutes after the setting of the sun the
deepest darkness reigns around. The difference in the length of day
and night decreases more and more the nearer you approach the
Equator. At the Equator itself the day and night are of equal
duration.
All the 14th and 15th of August we sailed parallel with the Cape de
Verde Islands, from which we were not more than 23 miles distant,
but which, on account of the hazy state of the weather, we could not
see.
