Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery

CHAPTER XIX. Hurricane off the Isle of France.--Its consequences.--Death of Mr. Slim. We were now to windward off the Isles of France and Bourbon, and nearly up with the land. This tract of ocean is the scene of the most violent hurricanes which are experienced on the external world, and it was our lot to encounter one of the most terrific. A sudden change of the wind from S. E. to N. W. warned me of the coming storm. The ship was promptly secured for a gale; as much of the water which had been stowed on deck, was secured below, as the consumption of provisions had made room for; the top gallant yards and masts were struck; booms sent down from the yards, dead-lights secured, and every precaution taken to weather out the gale without damage. I never experienced a more awful tempest. The wind blew for some time with such violence as to make the face of the sea quite level, the pressure of the atmosphere, combined with its rapid motion, being so great as to prevent the swell from rising. The ship, under bare poles, drove broadside to the wind, nearly on her beam ends. When the violence of the first onset abated, the sea rose with a swell of full twenty feet perpendicular elevation. Having a strong vessel, although she was very deeply laden, I did not mind this much; but when the wind chopped round to the S. W., a heavy gale, bringing with it a large sea across the swell which the Northwester had produced, our situation was not devoid of danger. The tops of the waves, blown off by the wind, flew like the spray of a waterfall, and filled the air with water as high as the mast head; while the waves, curled and lashed into foam by the whistling blast, gave the whole face of the ocean the appearance of one immense cataract. The vessel, assailed by the crossing sea from two points at once, laboured excessively, and was fairly drowned with water. She frequently plunged the bowsprit quite out of sight beneath the wave, and had it not been of unusually firm construction, it must have gone to pieces.