WATER SPOUTS. 347 



ward, was indeed (to me at least) of an imposing and aw- 

 ful character. A dark tloud, which every moment became 

 blacker and blacker, was fast extending over the leeward 

 sky. From the lower part of this ominous and stormy cur- 

 tain, projected three jet black columns, which kept curving 

 and swinging backwards and forwards, as if they were en- 

 dowed with life. 



These were the grand and mysterious hydrostatics of na- 

 ture ; and we were rapidly travelling into the influence of 

 their vast machinery. At this fearfully interesting crisis, 

 we approximated within half a mile of the nearest. So 

 sudden had been their formation, that no time was allowed 

 to put the ship about. We felt, or fancied we could feel, a 

 whirling motion of the atmosphere ; and more than one of 

 us imagined that we were already in the power of the fatal 

 tornadoes and their vortex. 



" Brace round the yards ! come, be quick ! haul aft and 

 load the gun, some hands," cried the captain, while he him- 

 self assisted in performing these important services. 



Every second was of consequence, a minute or so might 

 have sealed our doom. On on went the ship; and be- 

 fore she turned, we were frightfully near to the dreadful 

 spouts. Onward and downward these gigantic hose pipes 

 of cloud and water uncoiled. Now, they curved like a 

 reaper's hook. Anon, they twisted like a serpent's tail ! I 

 could imagine that two of them were at least a thousand 

 feet in length, with a body as thick as the Washington 

 monument at Baltimore. Their contortions and convulsions 

 were interesting and wonderful, and I found it impossible 

 to withdraw my attention, even for a moment, from the 

 grand phenomena; at length, the ship was put about, and 

 we began to increase our distance from what we had re- 

 garded as a watery death. The spouts straightened out, 

 and the lower ends of two of them approached the surface 

 of the deep. The sea beneath rose in a hillock of waves, 



