144 
MADAGASCAR. 
Dangers, however, sufficiently serious, remain to 
make a voyage in the Indian Seas at any time a 
serious and even hazardous affair ; and in the 
“ hurricane season ” a passage between the various 
islands is almost out of the question, so sudden 
and so violent are the storms that burst over 
these waters, and sweep away to almost certain 
destruction anything in the shape of a vessel 
that may happen to come within the vortex of 
the tempest. The cyclone, or circular storm, is 
perhaps the most fierce and relentless of all these 
visitations. It literally falls out of a clear sky, 
the only sign of its approach being a painful 
silence and an absence of all movement in the 
air : a sense of depression amounting almost at 
last to suffocation hangs over even the minutest 
forms of animal life, the flowers droop their 
heads, the leaf hangs listless upon the branch, 
nature seems to sink down into a fit of sullen 
stupor, a pale red haze shimmers everywhere, 
the sun loses his colour, the birds hide them¬ 
selves away and their songs cease, till the silence 
of night seems to have fallen upon all things. 
The boughs of the gigantic forest trees do not 
even vibrate, the slender ferns and graceful 
palms look limp and weary, and a strange gloom 
prevails everywhere. 
Old Easterns read quickly enough these warn¬ 
ings, and at once take precautions for the pro- 
