234 THE AQUARIAN NATURALIST. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



HOLOTHURIA SEA-CUCUMBER. 



" WHO has been meddling with, the barometer ? " ex- 

 claimed an old friend, as he raised his eyes from a 

 chicken that he was in the act of carving, and acci- 

 dentally took a glance at that useful instrument 

 hanging against the wall. It was a wheel barometer, 

 and was pointing steadily to " Set-fair." Now, as 

 there was nothing in the state of the weather to indi- 

 cate the realization of so agreeable a promise, it natu- 

 rally excited suspicion that the weather-glass had 

 been tampered with ; but such was not the case, the 

 fact being, that the index, having exhausted the entire 

 gamut of its lower notes, " Rainy," " Much rain," 

 " Stormy," &c., had positively encroached upon the 

 scale in alt., and had entered upon the fair-weather 

 prophecies in an inverse direction. 



That evening there arose a storm, and such a storm 

 as we shall not easily forget. The wind, roused to a 

 perfect hurricane, blew right on shore ; the sea, one 

 broad expanse of foam, rolled mountains high, and, 

 as the billows thundered on the beach, their spray 

 was driven inland in blinding sheets. The streets 

 were all deserted ; every house was tenantless, for all 

 had hurried to the cliffs, and every eye was strained 



