ï60 STUDIES OF NATURE- 



increafed every moment, and the whole channel 

 between this illand and the Ifle of Amber, ap- 

 peared to be an immenfe (heet of white foam, hol- 

 lowed into deep and dufky waves. This foam 

 collected itfelf at the bottom of the creeks, to the 

 height of more than fix feet, and the winds, which 

 bruflied along it's furface, carried it beyond the 

 fteep cliffs of the fliore, more than half a league 

 into the illand. At fight of thefe innumerable 

 white flakes, which were driven, in a horizontal 

 diredion, to the very foot of the mountains, you 

 would have thought that hills of fnow were ruih- 

 ing from the Sea. The horizon prefented every 

 fymptom of a lengthened tempeft : the Heavens 

 and the Sea feemed to be confounded in it with 

 each other. There were inceffantly detached from 

 it, clouds of a fearful appearance, which flew 

 along the zenith, with the velocity of birds j whilft 

 others appeared in it immoveable, like enormous 

 rocks. Not a fingle fpot of azure was perceptible 

 in the whole firmament j a pale and olive-coloured 

 glare was all that illuminated the objeéts on the 

 Earth, on the Sea, and in the Heavens. 



By the violent flraining of the veflel, what we 

 feared, at length took place. The cables on her 

 bows fnapped ; and as fhe then rode by a fingle 

 halfer, (he was dallied upon the rocks, half a 

 cable's length from the Ihore. One fcream of 



grief 



