Year: 1871

I


A ChristInas ofPeriI.


In a. recent number of GOOD H20rd.
fer the Y0zsHe there is. quite vivid des-
cription, written by a lady contributor


Of a scene of peril in the Indian Ocean.
We make the following extracts


/ The ship was always very quiet be-


tween the services on Sundays In the
afternoon there was a class for the chill
/ dren, and in the evening a third ser
vice was held in the forecastle for the
/ sailors. Thus the time glided on into
] weeks, and into months, before the ear
! ly days of December found us steaHing
! out of the open road of Madras. We had
only arrived a few hours bfeore, but
the surf was running so high that no
one attempted to land except those
whose journey ended there. Our captain
was anxious to be off and away to sea
again, for the barometer was falling ev-
iery moment, and these shores are most
/ dangerous in bad weather. Never have
/ 1 seen such a wonderful sunset as made
the western heavens glorious that even
ling. No picture that ever was painted,
no words which exist. can show it to
lyou 1t was impossible to look at it with
out feeling of awe as well as of admi-
ration Great banks of clouds lay piled
in crimson and purple masses along the
1 horizon, every here and there was a wide
! rift in their glowing depths. beyond
which lay calm, lovely glimpse of
what one felt must be heaven, with its
floor of a clear dazzling blue, melting
away into a wonderful pale green tint.
/ impossible to describe. The shape of
these cloud Alps changed, as we gazed
! from Il lofty mountain range into a bat
/ tlemented city, with spires and minarets
and domes rising behind the 8rial walls.
! Then spectre forms of knights and men
alarms loomed like phantom giants out
Of the lurid feecy mass, and we held
our breath at what looked like the re1eC-
ton of fierce battle in the sky. chang
ling in its turn into strange shapes of
monsters, compared with which the gi-
gantic animals which inhabited the
world before the Flood must have been
harmless pets


I remember feeling half provoked
with the captain. and indeed, with all
the officers of the ship, for not sharing
in my enthusiasm they looked, it is
true, at the splendid changing tints
which were reflected over half the sky,
but their glances showed no admiration,
nothing but anxiety, and l heard one
sailor say, Its the Hest sight that ever
/ / did see there's blow brewing, or I'm
a lubber." But it seemed as if they
were wrong in their foreboding, for we
had dull cloudy day on the morrow.
Yet there was a heavy, oppressive feel
ing in the atmosphere, and the waves
heaved restlessly the barometer fell
| lower and lower, and more anxious
a., IL
and all round the horizon. Sunset
brought yet more glowing orange and
scarlet to mingle with the purple and
crimson tints repeated over the steadily
increasing bank of clouds to the north
west Our eyes were so dazzled by the
coloring, we could hardly look at it for
more than a moment at a time. l heard
the grim old quartermaster mutter, "Oh
yes, it's all very well to say, How pratt
ty it is = ye mayn't ever see another,
pratty or ugly, I'm thinking - This
was in answer to the openly expressed
admiration of one of the passengers
About midnight both the wind and the
sea rose. but when I came on deck after
breakfast, 1 was quite surprised to see
the preparations for bad weather which
were going on in every direction. To
use nautical expression, things were
being ''made snug and the carpenter
was busy fastening down hatchways by
mailing sails and tarpaulus securely over
them. Up aloft every sail was furled,
and the upper yards were lowered; the
ship was scudding along under steam,
and there was an indescribablv angry
look both in sea and sky. AS for the
waves, they looked as if they were made
of mud instead of water, and the sky
matched them exactly. Another thing
struck me unpleasantly was that, in
stead of the beautiful boundIess vault of
blue heavens, with a light cloud f1eck-
ing it here and there, to which we had
so long been accustomed, there weighed
down and embodied us a dense thick
mist, (which was neither rain nor cloud;
it seemed as if the sky was sinking
down and crushing US. Through this
vapor we could hardly discern anything
As the day wore on, we heard minute
guns firing on our starboard quarter,
telling of some ship in dire destress, but
we had enough to do to take care of
ourselves, for although we seemed to
have been working hard at our prepa-
rations for many hours, the storm was
upon US, or rather we had steamed into
it, before we were half ready. Of





several fond of finding fault with ev-
erything, giving advice to the captain,
and the chief engineer, and the sailing
master, and even to the men at the helm;
but people were too busy to listen to
them, SO they grumbled and argued
away at great rate among themselves,
and were quite happy. rather think
that the ship herself was not one to in
spire confidence in her officers, and
therefore, instead of having any time to
spare in making preparations for bad
weather, which might have come within
reach Of our observation, they were oc-
cupied in more serious repairs. For in
stance, all our boats were still hanging
low down on the davits, as is customary
in fine weather. and long before we had
really got into the centre of the cyclone,
every boat was crushed as fat as if it
had been an eggshell. The wiseacres
made a great fuss about this, and said,
What should we do, if the worst came
to theworst, without any boats 2" But,
dear me- all the boats in e,yistaDce