

CHAP, in.] WEST INDIES. 299 



confidence of power, may learn a lesson of humilitv 

 from the contemplation, j* 



f Mr. Long, in the third volume of his History of Jamaica, has enu- 

 merated the following prognostics, as the usual precursms of a hurri- 

 cane : " Extraordinary continuance of extreme dry and hot weather. 

 On the near approach of the storm, a turbulent appearance of the sky : 

 the sun becomes unusually red, while the air is perfectly calm. The high- 

 est mountains are free of clouds, and are seen very distinctly. The sky 

 towards the north looks black and foul. The sea rolls on the coast and 

 into the harbours with a great swell, and emits, at the same time, a very 

 strong and disagreeable odour. On the full moon, a haze is seen round 



O C> 



her orb, and sometimes a halo round the sun."' To this enumeration) I 



will add a remarkable circumstance which happened in Jamaica in 1780. 

 Upwards of twenty hours before the commencement of the great storm in 

 that year, a very uncommon noise, resembling the roar of distant thun- 

 der, was heard to issue from the bottom of ail the wells in the neighbour- 

 hood of Kingston. There was, at that time, in Port Royal harbour, a fleet 

 of merchant ships, which were to sail the next morning. The commander 

 of one of these vessels was a witness to the circumstance I have men- 

 tioned ; and having been informed that it was one of the prognostics of 

 an approaching hurricane (though none had happened in Jamaica for near 

 forty years) he hastened on board his ship, warped her that evening into 

 the inner harbour into shoal water, and secured her with all the precau- 

 tions he thought necessary. At day-break the hurricane began, and this 

 ship was one of the very few that escaped destruction from its fury. 



