The chief anxiety was for the safety of the boats.  Early on the second day of warning they had been hoisted to the topmost notch of the cranes, and secured as thoroughly as experience could suggest; but at every lee lurch we gave it seemed as if we must dip them under water, while the wind threatened to stave the weather ones in by its actual solid weight.  It was now blowing a furious cyclone, the force of which has never been accurately gauged (even by the present elaborate instruments of various kinds in use).  That force is, however, not to be imagined by any one who has not witnessed it, except that one notable instance is on record by which mathematicians may get an approximate estimate.

Captain Toynbee, the late highly respected and admired Marine Superintendent of the British Meteorological Office, has told us how, during a cyclone which he rode out in the hotspur at Sandheads, the mouth of the Hooghly, the three naked topgallant-masts of his ship, though of well-tested timber a foot in diameter, and supported by all the usual network of stays, and without the yards, were snapped off and carried away solely by the violence of the wind.  It must, of course, have been an extreme gust, which did not last many seconds, for no cable that was ever forged would have held the ship against such a cataclysm as that.  This gentleman’s integrity is above suspicion, so that no exaggeration could be charged against him, and he had the additional testimony of his officers and men to this otherwise incredible fact.

The terrible day wore on, without any lightening of the tempest, till noon, when the wind suddenly fell to a calm.  Until that time, the sea, although heavy, was not vicious or irregular, and we had not shipped any heavy water at all.  But when the force of the wind was suddenly withdrawn, such a sea arose as I have never seen before or since.  Inky mountains of water raised their savage heads in wildest confusion, smashing one another in whirlpools of foam.  It was like a picture of the primeval deep out of which arose the new-born world.  Suddenly out of the whirling blackness overhead the moon appeared, nearly in the zenith, sending down through the apex of a dome of torn and madly gyrating cloud a flood of brilliant light.  Illumined by that startling radiance, our staunch and seaworthy ship was tossed and twirled in the hideous vortex of mad sea until her motion was distracting.  It was quite impossible to loose one’s hold and attempt to do anything without running the imminent risk of being dashed to pieces.  Our decks were full of water now, for it tumbled on board at all points; but as yet no serious weight of a sea had fallen upon us, nor had any damage been done.  Such a miracle as that could not be expected to continue for long.  Suddenly a warning shout rang out from somewhere—­“Hold on all, for your lives!” Out of the hideous turmoil around arose, like some black, fantastic ruin, an awful heap of