In these tropic latitudes Night does not seem "to fall,"--to descend
over the many-peaked land: it appears to rise up, like an exhalation,
from the ground. The coast-lines darken first;--then the slopes and the
lower hills and valleys become shadowed;--then, very swiftly, the gloom
mounts to the heights, whose very loftiest peak may remain glowing like
a volcano at its tip for several minutes after the rest of the island is
veiled in blackness and all the stars are out....
... Tropical nights have a splendor that seems strange to northern eyes.
The sky does not look so high--so far away as in the North; but the
stars are larger, and the luminosity greater.
With the rising of the moon all the violet of the sky flushes;--there is
almost such a rose-color as heralds northern dawn.
Then the moon appears over the mornes, very large, very bright--brighter
certainly than many a befogged sun one sees in northern Novembers; and
it seems to have a weird magnetism--this tropical moon. Night-birds,
insects, frogs,--everything that can sing,--all sing very low on the
nights of great moons. Tropical wood-life begins with dark: in the
immense white light of a full moon this nocturnal life seems afraid to
cry out as usual. Also, this moon has a singular effect on the nerves.
It is very difficult to sleep on such bright nights: you feel such a
vague uneasiness as the coming of a great storm gives....