194 HAIL-STORM ON THE LAKE. 



a distance, I had found to be not sufficiently conspicuous. As the 

 morning was exceedingly hot and sultry, and the ascent of the 

 cliff difficult and toilsome, we imprudently left our upper garments 

 in the camp, and continued our labour upon the station until the 

 middle of the afternoon ; when a squall, which had been threaten- 

 ing all the day, burst upon us from the north-west, with great fury, 

 accompanied with vivid lightning and heavy thunder. The sky 

 was black as midnight, and the reverberations of the awful peals 

 of thunder from the surrounding mountains was solemn and sub- 

 lime. Before the storm came up, the boat with water had been 

 descried to the northward, with both sails set, and I had watched 

 her with great anxiety, as I had but little confidence in the skill 

 of those who had her in charge, and was fearful the squall would 

 come upon them unprepared. I bitterly reproached myself for 

 allowing her to go without me ; as, in case of her loss, which, at 

 the time, seemed highly probable, not only would the lives of her 

 crew be sacrificed, but we, who remained on this barren rock, with- 

 out the means of leaving it and destitute of water, must have mise- 

 rably perished. To my great relief, however, I saw, through the 

 glass, the sails furled, the masts taken down, and the boat brought 

 to anchor just as the gust struck her, burying every thing in mist 

 and darkness. I thought, too, that I made out the skiff in tow, but 

 was not certain, as the distance was too great. The storm lasted 

 more than an hour — the wind blew a hurricane, and it hailed with 

 great violence, covering the ground in a few minutes with hail- 

 stones as large as peas. We sheltered ourselves as well as we 

 could behind some rocky cliffs ; but, being thinly clad, we became 

 uncomfortably cold ; and, as soon as the hail ceased, we hastened, 

 wet to the skin, to descend to our camp, glad to escape from the 

 piercing wind which swept in furious gusts over our elevated 

 pinnacle. ^ 



The yawl, soon after, came into the bay, with the missing men 

 on board, but without the skiff, which, though recovered, had 

 broken adrift in the gale, parting an inch cable, doubled, by which 

 she had been fastened. It appeared, as we had hoped, that those 

 in the yawl had seen the skiff yesterday in the storm, and had suc- 

 ceeded in picking her up. The men in her were without their 

 coats, exposed to the peltings of the hail-storm, sea-sick, almost 

 frozen, and nearly scared to death. Had they not been rescued, 

 they must have suffered terribly, if indeed they had not perished, 

 as they had nothing to eat; their boat at the time was half- full. 



