One day, after we had lost the north-east Trade wind, a furious squall, unperceived till it reached us, swept through the fleet.  These violent tornadoes are generally called white squalls, from being unattended by those black heavy rain clouds.  On the occasion of ordinary squalls, even with the advantage of the warning given by rising clouds, it is not always easy to escape their force unhurt.  If the wind be fair, a natural reluctance is felt to shorten sail, at all events, until the squall is so near that there is an absolute necessity for doing so, and inexperienced officers are often deceived by the unexpected velocity with which the gust comes down upon them.  Even the oldest sailors are apt to miscalculate the time likely to elapse before the wind can touch them.  In these cases, unless the men be very active, the sails are torn, and sometimes a mast or a yard is carried away.  It is, besides, often doubtful whether there is wind or merely a plump of rain in the squall; there are, therefore, few points of distinction more remarkable between the seamanship of an old and a young officer, than their power of judging of this matter.  To a man quite inexperienced, a squall may look in the highest degree threatening; he will order the top-gallant clew-lines to be manned, place hands by the topsail haulyards, and lay along the main clew-garnets.  His more experienced captain, however, being apprised of the squall’s approach, steps on deck, takes a hasty look to windward, and says quietly to the officer of the watch, “Never mind, there’s nothing in it, it’s only rain; keep the sails on her.”

But although the older authority nine times in ten proves correct in his judgment, even he might find it difficult, if not impossible, to tell exactly upon what his confidence rested.  Sailors boast, indeed, of having an infallible test by which the point in question may be ascertained, their secret being clothed in the following rhymes so to call them:—­

    “If the rain’s before the wind,
    ’Tis time to take the topsails in;
    If the wind’s before the rain,
    Hoist your topsails up again.”

The practical knowledge alluded to, however, comes not by rhymes, but by experience alone, with a kind of intuitive confidence.  Many long and hard years of study, and myriads of forgotten trials must have been gone through to give this enviable knowledge.

No experience, however, can altogether guard against these sudden gusts or white squalls, since they make no show, except, sometimes, by a rippling of the water along which they are sweeping.  On the occasion above alluded to there was not even this faint warning.  The first ships of the convoy touched by the blast were laid over almost on their beam-ends, but in the next instant righted again, on the whole of their sails being blown clean out of the bolt-ropes.  The Theban frigate and the Volage, then lying nearly in the centre of the fleet, were the only ships which saved an inch of canvas, owing chiefly to our having so many more hands on board, but partly to our having caught sight of the ruin brought on the vessels near us, just in time to let fly the sheets and haulyards and get the yards down.  But even then, with the utmost exertion of every man and boy on board, we barely succeeded in clewing all up.