midday in
summer
We advanced silently , bathed in waves of electric fluid . By reason of a phenomenon which I can not explain , and thanks to its extreme diffusion , now complete , the light illumined equally the sides of every hill and rock . Its seat appeared to be nowhere , in no determined force , and produced no shade whatever . The appearance presented was that of a tropical country at midday in summer -- in the midst of the equatorial regions and under the vertical rays of the sun . All signs of vapor had disappeared . The rocks , the distant mountains , some confused masses of far-off forests , assumed a weird and mysterious aspect under this equal distribution of the luminous fluid ! We resembled , to a certain extent , the mysterious personage in one of Hoffmann 's fantastic tales -- the man who lost his shadow .