The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858

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The large tropical moon rose in full majesty over the Gulf of Mexico, that beneath it rolled a weltering surge of silver, which broke upon the level sand of the beach with a low, sullen roar, prophetic of storms to come. To-night a south wind was heavily blowing over Gulf and prairie, laden with salt odors of weed and grass, now and then crossed by a strain of such perfume as only tropic breezes know,—a breath of heavy, passionate sweetness from orange-groves and rose gardens, mixed with the miasmatic sighs of rank forests, and mile on mile of tangled cane-brake, where jewel-tinted snakes glitter and emit their own sickly-sweet odor, and the deep blue bells of luxuriant vines wave from their dusky censers steams of poisonous incense.

I endured the influence of all this as long as I dared, and then turned my pony's head from the beach, and, loitering through the city's hot streets, touched him into a gallop as the prairie opened before us, and followed the preternatural, colossal shadow of horse and man east by the moon across the dry dull grass and bitter yellow chamomile growth of the sand, till I stopped at the office door of the Hospital, when, consigning my horse to a servant, I commenced my nightly round of the wards.

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"It's got a pesky look, though, Doctor! I thought I'd seen enough curus creturs in the Marquesas, but that beats all!"

Seeing the insect really irritated and annoyed him, I put it out of the window, and turned the blinds closely to prevent its reëntrance, and he went on with his story.

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