310 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES; 
spouts. They occur more frequently in the 
South than in the North Pacific, and although 
often seen among the Society Islands, are more 
rarely met with in the Sandwich group. But 
throughout the Pacific, waterspouts of varied form 
and size are among the most frequent of the splen- 
did phenomena, and mighty works of the Lord, 
which those behold who go down to the sea in 
ships, and do business upon the great waters. 
They are sublime objects of unusual interest, when 
viewed from the shore; but when beheld at sea, 
especially if near, and from a small and fragile 
bark, as we had seen them, it is almost impossible 
so to divest the mind of a sense of personal 
danger, as to contemplate with composure their 
stately movement, or the rapid internal circular 
eddy of the waters. 
Nor is it easy for an individual, who has never 
beheld them in such a situation, to realize the 
sensation produced, when the solitary voyagers, 
from their light canoe, or deckless boat, dancing 
on every undulating wave, descry them towering 
from the surface of the water, uniting the ocean 
and the heavens, while the powerful agitation of 
the former indicates the mighty process by which 
they are sustained. Sometimes they have ap- 
proached the shore, and although I do not recollect 
any instance of their actually destroying persons 
at sea, I am inclined to presume such a calamity 
must have occurred, or they would not be such 
objects of terror to the people. 
During our abode in Huahine, a number of 
natives were on a voyage from the Leeward to the 
Windward Islands, in a boat belonging to Mr. Wil- 
liams, when a waterspout approached them. They 
had heard that, when seen by navigators, they some- 
