at the first breath of the hurricane, or we should have been instantaneously overwhelmed.  We scudded with frightful velocity before the sea, and the water made clear breaches over us.  The frame-work of our stern was shattered excessively, and, in almost every respect, we had received considerable injury; but to our extreme Joy we found the pumps unchoked, and that we had made no great shifting of our ballast.  The main fury of the blast had already blown over, and we apprehended little danger from the violence of the wind; but we looked forward to its total cessation with dismay; well believing, that, in our shattered condition, we should inevitably perish in the tremendous swell which would ensue.  But this very just apprehension seemed by no means likely to be soon verified.  For five entire days and nights —­ during which our only subsistence was a small quantity of jaggeree, procured with great difficulty from the forecastle —­ the hulk flew at a rate defying computation, before rapidly succeeding flaws of wind, which, without equalling the first violence of the Simoom, were still more terrific than any tempest I had before encountered.  Our course for the first four days was, with trifling variations, S.E. and by S.; and we must have run down the coast of New Holland. —­ On the fifth day the cold became extreme, although the wind had hauled round a point more to the northward. —­ The sun arose with a sickly yellow lustre, and clambered a very few degrees above the horizon —­ emitting no decisive light. —­ There were no clouds apparent, yet the wind was upon the increase, and blew with a fitful and unsteady fury.  About noon, as nearly as we could guess, our attention was again arrested by the appearance of the sun.  It gave out no light, properly so called, but a dull and sullen glow without reflection, as if all its rays were polarized.  Just before sinking within the turgid sea, its central fires suddenly went out, as if hurriedly extinguished by some unaccountable power.  It was a dim, sliver-like rim, alone, as it rushed down the unfathomable ocean.

We waited in vain for the arrival of the sixth day —­ that day to me has not arrived —­ to the Swede, never did arrive.  Thenceforward we were enshrouded in patchy darkness, so that we could not have seen an object at twenty paces from the ship.  Eternal night continued to envelop us, all unrelieved by the phosphoric sea-brilliancy to which we had been accustomed in the tropics.  We observed too, that, although the tempest continued to rage with unabated violence, there was no longer to be discovered the usual appearance of surf, or foam, which had hitherto attended us.  All around were horror, and thick gloom, and a black sweltering desert of ebony. —­ Superstitious terror crept by degrees into the spirit of the old Swede, and my own soul was wrapped up in silent wonder.  We neglected all care of the ship, as worse than useless, and securing ourselves, as well as possible, to the