90 VOYAGE FROM INDIA TO SIAM AND MALACCA. 



opening for the mouth, etc., but everything was very small, and 

 the whole animal very fragile. 



10. — We had some showers with gusts of wind alternating 

 with dead calm, so that we advanced but little. Pullu Lada began 

 to be an aggravating view for us. 



Towards the evening we saw some swallows flying over 

 the sea ; I had watched them already for some days, but I was 

 in doubt whether these were the kind which build the valuable 

 eatable nests. 



In the evening we had strong flashes of lightning, the sky 

 and lightning above Sumatra were very red, but the flashes 

 above Malacca were quite white at times, at least they were 

 very pale. 



11. — Strong showers with thunder and changing winds all 

 the morning. There was a small water-spout quite close to the 

 ship. First of alll thought it was a volcano underneath the sea 

 because I could not detect the origin on account of the clouds 

 arising from the sea, for there was a black narrow column of about 

 two feet long in the middle of some waves, more than usually 

 agitated and white and smokelike. This smoke rose in a whirl, 

 following the direction which the wind took; it was as high as a 

 man and of a whitish-yellow colour. Shortly after the column 

 descending from the clouds grew oblique and wound down in 

 snakelike movements; it was about 1^ feet wide and darker than 

 the other clouds. The whole phenomena lasted only half an 

 hour. It looked like a footpath descending from the clouds ; the 

 sky round about was covered with small scaly clouds, which 

 were not very dark. The sea had the appearance of being cover- 

 ed with blossoms. This was produced by slimy yellow fibres and 

 filaments; among them were a great quantity of cylindric small 

 bodies, looking like straw and pointed at the two sides. I 

 could not detect any life in them, although they had almost 

 all the same shape. 



I caught the kind of Medusa I mentioned yesterday several 

 times to-day. The body is a cone, rounded towards the end ; 

 it had eight broad furrows at the sides, the prominent parts have 

 eight nerves, they are jointed with short crossthreads and cover- 

 ed with short soft hair ; at the end it has an opening like a fun- 

 nel ; it is concave below and has four threadlike tubular arms, 

 which are twice as long as the whole body, which itself is not 



