SOUFEIERE, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAGNE PELEE, IN 1902. 
495 
was clearly seeu. Its similarity to an Alpine snow avalanche was complete in all 
respects, except the temperature of the respective masses. The red glow faded in a 
minute or two, and in its place we now saw, rushing forward over the sea, a great 
rounded, boiling cloud, black, and filled with lightnings. It came straight out of the 
avalanche, of which it was clearly only the lighter and cooler surface, and as it 
advanced it visibly swelled, getting larger and larger every minute. The moonlight 
shining on its face showed up the details of its surface. It was a fear-inspiring siglit, 
coming straight over the water directly for us, where we lay with the sails flapping 
idly as the boat gently rolled on the waves of the sea. 
The cloud was black, dense, solid, and opaque, absolutely impenetrable, like a mass 
of ink. It was globular as seen end on, very perfectly rounded, hut covered with 
innunierahle minor excrescences, rounded, and filled with terrific energy. 'J hey shot 
out, swelled, and multiplied till the whole surface seemed boiling; one had hardly 
time to form before another sprung iip at its side ; but they were directed mostly to 
the front and fewer at the margins, so that their eftect was that the cloud drove 
onward without expanding laterally to any great extent. On the whole the 
resemblance to the rising towering cauliflowers of steam, which soared up from 
the fissure, was quite striking, only here the cloud lay on the water and sped on 
horizontally, and its ebony mass was a great contrast to the pale, pearly, ascending 
steam jets. 
The display of lightning in the cloud was marvellous. In rapid flashes, so shoi't 
that they often seemed mere points, and in larger, branching, crooked lines it 
continually dickered and scintillated through the whole vast mass. It was often 
greenish, perhaps, when seen through some slight depth of the dust cloud, at other 
times yellowish, and always rapid, short-lived—a mere succession of flashing points in 
the great black wall of cloud. Many of the flashes were horizontal, others shot 
obliquely from one lobe to another, while along the base, where the black cloud rested 
on the steel-grey sea, there was a line of sparkling lights, constantly changing, varying 
in amount l)ut never disappearing. Tins feature was so pronounced and so apparent 
at the first glance, that we were at once reminded of the narratives given us by 
survivors in St. Vincent, in Avhich it was stated that when the black cloud rolled 
down upon the sea it was filled with fire. 
Nearer and nearer it came to where our little boat lay Ijecahned, right in the path 
of its murderous violence. We sat and gazed, mute with astonishment and wonder, 
overwhelmed by the magnificence of the spectacle, which we had heard so much about, 
and had never hoped to see. In our minds there was little room for terror, so 
absorbed were we in the terrible grandeur of the scene. But our sailors were 
in a frenzy of fear, they seized their oars and rowed for their lives, howling with 
dread every time they looked over their shoulders at the rushing cloud behind us. 
Their exertions did little gf)(»d, as the boat was too heavy to row, and fear gave place 
to despair. But in a minute a slight puff of wind came from the south-east, very 
