GALES OF DIFFERENT LATITUDES. 279 



insisted that he should have sooner or later drifted 

 into shoal water. To this I remarked that it should 

 have been so much later that he would have been in 

 an excellent state to furnish food for the craw-fish 

 and eels, or to be employed as bait for wolves. 

 This little adventure curtailed our day's journey, 

 so we passed the evening at the camp of last 

 night. 



During the day we had a specimen of how it 

 could blow in this neighbourhood ; and if the gentle- 

 man who had charge of this section of the country 

 for Boreas did not do his work in a thorough manner, 

 then I must be acknowledged no judge of the power 

 of the winds. The gusts were fiercer than any I 

 had ever felt at sea, and of much longer continuance. 

 It is generally supposed that the gales of the tem- 

 perate regions are much more* moderate in compari- 

 son with those of tropical climates, but such is not the 

 case. The latter, coming on more suddenly, and often 

 being preceded by little or no prophetic indications, 

 are more destructive. The gales of lower latitudes 

 are moreover marked by more frequent lulls, some 

 of these enduring even minutes, whereas here, and 

 generally in similar latitudes, the blow may increase 

 or diminish in violence, but seldom entirely breaks 

 off even for a moment. Although we had got ample 

 warning of what might be expected by the lowering, 

 overcast look of the heavens, and the excessive rare- 

 faction of the atmosphere, distant objects looking 

 close and looming up double their proper size, still, 



