o6 DAVID AND VIRGIL. [169I. 



to him, that had preserv'd us in the midst of it thro' his in- 

 finite Mercy. 



When we were a little come to our selves, we lookt upon 

 those dreadful Billows which threaten'd still to swallow us 

 up, as if they only play'd with us, and concluded that the 

 Tempest in which we had been, couM be nothing less than a 

 Hurricane. We found a true and lively Description of it in 

 the CVII Psalm, which we read with great Pleasure and 

 Admiration, as we did also the XXIX. 



Let who will boast of the famous Idcea's of Virgil on the 

 same Subject : What he says, do's not come up to the 

 Sublime of these two Psalms. And, indeed, all the Places 

 admir'd by the Pedants in the Greek and Latin Poets, are 

 but Trifles, in Comparison witli the Magnificent and Inimit- 

 able Canticles of David. 



We Discours'd a long time on the terrible and almost in- 

 credible effects of tlie Matter of Air, which is in appearance 

 so soft, so weak, so light, so invisible, and like to nothing, 

 and which in the impetuous Agitations of these Whirl-winds, 

 tear up the greatest Trees by the Pioots, break Ships to 

 pieces, throw down Houses, and in a few Minutes cause such 

 great Disorders. 



What's most to be admir'd in it, is, that the surest Presage 

 of a Hurricane^ (an Indian Word which we have adopted) 



1 ^'Ouragan". The -winds and weather between the Cape and the 

 meridians of Madagascar or IMauritius are certainly very peculiar, being 

 a sort of debatable ground between the trades and the anti-trades, 

 a region alternately affected by both. 



Lieut. Bridet, Director of the Observatory at St. Denis, Reunion, 

 attributes the rotatory gales or cyclones, which are encountered as far 

 south as lat. 40°, to the recurving of those true cyclones which com- 

 mence in the northern margin of the trade winds. These cyclones turn 

 from left to right, like all others in the southern hemisphere, but 

 with an angular velocity less than that of the cyclones of the torrid 

 zone. 



These extra tropical gales, which are most violent from May to 

 August, invariably travel to the eastward. They last from one to 



