This constellation is in about 185 degrees of longitude; its south-polar
distance being only about 39 degrees, it cannot be seen in the northern
parts of Europe.[130] Humboldt who observed the cross of the south, thus
eloquently describes it:--“The lower regions of the air were loaded with
vapours for some days. We saw distinctly, for the first time, the cross
of the south, only in the night of the 4th and 5th of July, in the
sixteenth degree of latitude. It was strongly inclined, and appeared,
from time to time, between the clouds, the centre of which, furrowed by
uncondensed lightnings, reflected a silver light. The pleasure felt on
discovering the southern cross was warmly shared by such of the crew as
had lived in the colonies. In the solitude of the seas, we hail a star
as a friend from whom we have been long separated. Among the Portuguese
and the Spaniards, peculiar motives seem to increase this feeling; a
religious sentiment attaches them to a constellation, the form of which
recalls the sign of the faith planted by their ancestors in the deserts
of the new world. The two great stars which mark the summit and the foot
of the cross, having nearly the same right ascension, it follows, that
the constellation is almost vertical at the moment when it passes the
meridian. This circumstance is known to every nation that lives beyond
the tropics, or in the southern hemisphere. It is known at what hour of
the night, in different seasons, the southern cross is erect, or
inclined. It is a timepiece that advances very regularly nearly four
minutes a day; and no other group of stars exhibits, to the naked eye,
an observation of time so easily made. How often have we heard our
guides exclaim, in the savannas of Venezuela, or in the desert extending
from Lima to Truxillo, ‘Midnight is past, the cross begins to bend!’ How
often these words reminded us of that affecting scene, where Paul and
Virginia, seated near the source of the river of Lataniers, conversed
together for the last time; and when the old man, at the sight of the
southern cross, warns them that it is time to separate!”
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