22 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES* 
have had such a dusting: foul winds, gales, and calms 
—or rather breathing spaces, which the gale took occa¬ 
sionally to muster up fresh energies for a blow—with 
a heavy head sea, that prevented our sailing even when 
we got a slant. On the afternoon of the day we quitted 
Stornaway, I got a notion how it was going to be; the 
sun went angrily down behind a bank of solid grey 
cloud, and by the time we were up with the Butt of 
Lewis, the whole sky was in tatters, and the mercury 
nowhere, with a heavy swell from the north-west. 
As, two years before, I had spent a week in trying 
to beat through the Boost of Sumburgh under double- 
reefed trysails, I was at home in the weather; and, 
guessing we were in for it, sent down the topmasts, 
stowed the boats in board, handed the foresail, rove the 
ridge-ropes, and reefed all down. By midnight it blew 
a gale, which continued without intermission until the 
day we sighted Iceland; sometimes increasing to a hur¬ 
ricane, but broken now and then by sudden lulls, which 
used to leave us for a couple of hours at a time tumbling 
about on the top of the great Atlantic rollers—or Spanish 
waves, as they are called—until I thought the ship 
would roll the masts out of her. Why they should be 
