THE CLOUDS AND WAVES 113 



the massive front of the saloon, which apartment it 

 gutted. That was not to be wondered at, any more 

 than was the loss of the bulwarks and everything 

 movable, however firmly it was lashed. What was 

 passing strange was the fact that all the teak-panel- 

 ling on the sides of the forward-house was smoothed 

 off as by a gigantic plane. 



What the force of the waves when meeting with a 

 rock-barrier means, has, as far as I know, never been 

 assessed in terms of foot-tons, nor do I know that the 

 statement if it were made would be intelligible or even 

 interesting to most of us. But it is one of the grandest 

 sights imaginable to witness, during a gale which is 

 blowing directly on shore, the impact of the waves 

 against such a tremendous cliff rising sheer from the sea 

 as is the North Head of Sydney, New South Wales, for 

 instance. As the mighty Pacific waves, with the accu- 

 mulated force behind them of the immeasurable storm, 

 strike against that sheer wall of rock, the whole sur- 

 rounding land is felt to tremble and quiver, and four 

 hundred feet above there rises from the turf crowning 

 the cliff great fountains of spray, forced upward through 

 the interstices of the rock by the weight of the waves. 

 But more terrific in appearance is the aspect of the 

 waves when suddenly arrested in their majestic onward 

 rush by a submerged reef. Then the wave, meeting 

 the obstruction in its most massive part, and meeting 

 it, too, so abruptly, rises in a vast wall of roaring foam, 

 and hurls itself over the barrier as if it must find some- 

 thing to destroy. But in spite of the magnitude of 

 the breakers and the fierceness of their onset, their 

 power is broken only a few feet inside the reef, and 

 all is peace. The wild waves of the sea are curbed, 



I 



