Cheyenne transporter. [volume] (Darlington, Indian Terr.) 1879-1886, 1883-12-13
A starry Nightfn California.

N 6t@tEy OaIIOTnIAs
The following impressive description
of starry night occurs in the Decem-
ber Century, in the concluding chapter
of extracts from Robert Louis Steven
sons new book (yet uppublished) 4,
THE Silverado Squatters": Il have
never seen such night. 1t seemed to
throw calumny in the teeth of all the
painters that ever dabbled in starlight.
The sky itself was of a ruddy, powerful,
nameless, changing color, dark and
glossy like serpent's back. The
stars, like innumerable millions, stuck
boldly forth like lamps. The milky
way was bright, like moonlit cloud:
half heaven seemed milky way. The
greater luminaries shone each more
clearly than a winters moon; there
light was dyed in every sort of color,
red like fire, blue like steel, green like
the tracks of sunset; and so sharply did
each stand forth in its own lustre, that
there was no appearance of that Hat,
star-spraneled arch we know so well in
pictures, but all the bottom of heaven
was one chaos of contesting luminares
"a hurly-burly of stars. Against this,
the hills and rugged tree-tops stood out
redly dark.
''As we continued to advance, the
lesser lights and milky ways grew pale
and then vanished; the countless hosts
of heaven dwndled in number by sue.
cessive millions; those that still shone
had tempered their exceeding bright
ness and fallen back into their custom
airy wistful distance; and the sky de-
clined from its first bewildering splen-
dor into the appearance of common
night. Slowly this change proceeded,
and still there was no sign of any
cause. Then whiteness like mist was
thrown over the spurs of tho mountain
Yet while and, as we turned cor
ner, a great leap of silver light and net
of forest shadows fell across the road
and upon our wandering wagonful; and
swimming low among the trees, we
beheld strange, misshaped, waning
moon half tilted on her back.
Where are We when the moon ap-
pearsP' as the old poet sang, half
haunting TO the stars, bent upon a
courtly purpose.
"'As the suolight round the dim earth's
midnight tower of shadow p0urs,
Viewless to the eye of mortal,
Till it floods the moons pale iset on the
mornings golden shores
$50 sings Mr.. Trowbridge, with a
noble inspiration. And SO had the sun
light flooded that pale islet of the moon
and her lit face put out, one after an
other that galaxy of stars. The won
der of the drive was over; but by some
nice conjunction of clearness in the
air and tit shadow in toe valley where
we travelled, we had seen for little
while that brave display of the mid
night heavens. 1t was gone, butt had
been; nor shall | ever again behold the
stars with the same mind. He who
has seen the sea commoved with q
great hurricane thinks of it very differ.
emily from him who has seen it only il
a calm. The difference between calm
and a hurricane is not greatly mole
striking than that between the ordn.
AIRY face of night and the splendor that
shown upon US in that drive. Two in
our wagon had often seen night in the
tropics; but even that bears no com
parison, the nameless color of the
sky, the hues of the star-hre, and tn,
incredible projection of the stars them.
selves, starting from their orbits, Sc
that the eye seemed to distinguish theil
positions in the hollow of space, these
were things that we had never seen be-
fore and shall never see again"
Not at All Afraid.
John Swnton.
4