498 
now A DECK BECOMES A SIEVE. 
reduce sail still furtliei’. The following night it had 
increased to a storm, and the day after that found us 
scudding before a fearful hurricane under a close-reefed 
maintopsail and fore storm-staysail. This lasted a week 
or more, and, as we got farther and farther from under 
the lee of the Kurile Islands, it raised a heavy rolling 
sea which threw us ahead at a most glorious rate. It 
was the ‘^old John’s” forte , — this thing of running away 
from a gale, — for she was so long that there was not the 
most remote danger of her “broaching to;” and, upon 
the old principle of accomplishing a thing through main 
strength and stupidity, she was often known to travel at 
the rate of twelve knots the hour while thus urged bodily 
before a sea and gale. 
This was all very fine for the first day or two ; but, as 
the hurricane approached its climax, the seas, which had 
hitherto only roared under our flying stern or occasion- 
ally boarded us over either waist, began to tumble in 
over the taffrail and warn us of the necessity of batten- 
ing down the hatches. Tlie old ship herself, too, began 
to complain badly about that time. The furious rate at 
which she was being driven ahead, combined with the 
violent spells of rolling which she indulged in about 
every five minutes, and the jarring power exerted by 
the propeller on account of the unusual rate at which 
the ship’s speed caused it to revolve, made her decks 
open so much that we might as well have had an ob- 
lotig sieve overhead. The water came through them 
into our apartments in such quantities as to saturate our 
beds, min our books, and keep the lower deck constantly 
afloat. 
