60 TEE CRUISE OF THE *' CACHALOT:' 



of nimbi, began to belly downward, until the centre 

 of it tapered into a stem, and the whole mass looked 

 like a vast, irregularly-moulded funnel. Lower and lower 

 it reached, as if feeling for a soil in which to grow, until 

 the sea beneath was agitated sympathetically, rising at 

 last in a sort of pointed mound to meet the descending 

 column. Our nearness enabled us to see that both 

 descending and rising parts were whirling violently in 

 obedience to some invisible force ; and when they had 

 joined each other, although the spiral motion did not 

 appear to continue, the upward rush of the water 

 through what was now a long elastic tube was very 

 plainly to be seen. The cloud overhead grew blacker 

 and bigger, until its gloom was terrible. The pipe, or 

 stem, got thinner gradually, until it became a mere 

 thread ; nor, although watching closely, could we deter- 

 mine when the connection between sea and sky ceased 

 — one could not call it severed. The point rising from 

 the sea settled almost immediately amidst a small 

 commotion, as of a whirlpool. The tail depending from 

 the cloud slowly shortened, and the mighty reservoir 

 lost the vast bulge which had hung so threateningly 

 above. Just before the final disappearance of the last 

 portion of the tube, a fragment of cloud appeared to 

 break off. It fell near enough to show by its thunder- 

 ing roar what a body of water it must have been, 

 although it looked like a saturated piece of dirty rag 

 in its descent. 



For whole days and nights together we sometimes lay 

 almost "as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean," 

 when the deep blue dome above matched the deep blue 

 plain below, and never a fleck of white appeared in sky 

 or sea. This perfect stop to our progress troubled none, 



