37 
tentions of the sea and winds presented a 
scene of horror, of which, perhaps, the annals 
of marine history gives us no example. Al- 
though bred to the sea from my earliest 
life, yet all I had ever seen before, all I had 
ever heard of or read, gave me no adequate 
idea of those sublime effects which the vio- 
lence and raging of the elements produce, 
and which, at this tremendous hour, seemed 
to threaten nature itself with dissolution. 
The ship, raised on mountains of water, was 
in a moment precipitated into an abyss, 
where she appeared to wait until the coming 
sea raised her again into the clouds. The 
perpetual roaring of the elements echoing 
through the void, produced such an awful 
sensation in the minds of the most expe- 
rienced of the seamen, that several of them 
appeared for some time in a state of stupe- 
faction J and those less accustomed to the 
dangers of the sea added to this scene of 
misery by their shriekings and exclama- 
tions. 
The terrors of the day could only be 
surpassed by those of the night. — When 
the darkness came on, it is impossible for 
