and passed additional lashings around them; and, in short, made all the requisite preparations for the battle with the elements which awaited us. If the reader will cast his eye upon the diagram, at Alabama, No. 1, he will see that the ship has her head to the eastward, that her yards are braced up on the starboard tack, and that she took the wind, as indicated by the arrows, from S. to S. S. E.

The ship is lying still, and the storm, which the reader sees, by the dotted line, is travelling to the north-east, is approaching her. She was soon enveloped in its folds; and the winds, running around the circle, in that mad career represented by the arrows, howled, and whistled, and screeched around her like a thousand demons. She was thrown over, several streaks, and the waves began to assault her with sledge-hammer blows, and occasionally to leap on board of her, flooding her decks, and compelling us to stand knee-deep in water. By this time, we had furled the fore-topsail; the fore-staysail had been split into ribbons; and whilst I was anxiously debating with myself, whether I should hold on to the main-topsail, a little longer, or start its sheets, and let it blow to pieces—for it would have been folly to think of sending men aloft in such a gale, to furl it—the iron bolt on the weather-quarter, to which the standing part of the main-brace was made fast, gave way; away went the main-yard, parted at the slings, and, in a trice, the main-topsail was whipped into fragments, and tied into a hundred curious knots. We were now under nothing but the small storm-staysail, described; the topgallant yards had been sent down from aloft, there was very little top-hamper exposed to the wind, and yet the ship was pressed over and over, until I feared she would be thrown upon her beam-ends, or her masts swept by the board. The lee-quarter-boat was wrenched from the davits, and dashed in pieces; and, as the sea would strike the ship, forward or aft, she would tremble in every fibre, as if she had been a living thing, in fear of momentary dissolution.

But she behaved nobly, and I breathed easier after the first half hour of the storm. All hands were, of course, on deck, with the hatches battened down, and there was but little left for us to do, but to watch the course of the storm, and to ease the

ship, all it was possible to ease her, with the helm. Life-lines had been rove, fore and aft the decks, by my careful first lieutenant, to prevent the crew from being washed overboard, and it was almost as much as each man could do, to look out for his own personal safety.

The storm raged thus violently for two hours, the barometer settling all the while, until it reached 28.64. It then fell suddenly calm. Landsmen have heard of an "ominous" calm, but this calm seemed to us almost like the fiat of death. We knew, at once, that we were in the terrible vortex of a cyclone, from which so few mariners have ever escaped to tell the tale! Nothing else could account for the suddenness of the calm, coupled with the lowness of the barometer. We knew that when the vortex should pass, the gale would be renewed, as suddenly as it had ceased, and with increased fury, and that the frail little Alabama-for indeed she looked frail and small, now, amid the giant seas that were rising in a confused mass around her, and threatening, every moment, to topple on board of her, with an avalanche of water that would bury her a hundred fathoms deep-might be dashed in a thousand pieces in an instant. I pulled out my watch, and noted the time of the occurrence of the calm, and causing one of the cabin-doors to be unclosed, I sent an officer below to look at the barometer. He reported the height already mentioned-28.64. If the reader will cast his eye upon the diagram again—at figure No. 2-he will see where we were at this moment. The Alabama's head now lies to the south-east-she having "come up" gradually to the wind, as it hauled-and she is in the south-eastern hemisphere of the vortex. The scene was the most remarkable I had ever witnessed. The ship, which had been pressed over, only a moment before, by the fury of the gale as described, had now righted, and the heavy storm staysail, which, notwithstanding its diminutive size, had required two stout tackles to confine it to the deck, was now, for want of wind to keep it steady, jerking these tackles about as though it would snap them in pieces, as the ship rolled to and fro! The aspect of the heavens was appalling. The clouds were writhing and twisting, like so many huge serpents engaged in combat, and hung so low, in the thin air of the vortex, as almost

to touch our mast-heads. The best description I can give of the sea, is that of a number of huge watery cones-for the waves seemed now in the diminished pressure of the atmosphere in the vortex to jut up into the sky, and assume a conical shapethat were dancing an infernal reel, played by some necromancer. They were not running in any given direction, there being no longer any wind to drive them, but were jostling each other, like drunken men in a crowd, and threatening, every moment, to topple, one upon the other.

With watch in hand I noticed the passage of the vortex. It was just thirty minutes in passing. The gale had left us, with the wind from the south-west; the ship, the moment she emerged from the vortex, took the wind from the north-west. We could see it coming upon the waters. The disorderly seas were now no longer jostling each other; the infernal reel had ended; the cones had lowered their late rebellious heads, as they felt the renewed pressure of the atmosphere, and were being driven, like so many obedient slaves, before the raging blast. The tops of the waves were literally cut off by the force of the wind, and dashed hundreds of yards, in blinding spray. The wind now struck us "butt and foremost," throwing the ship over in an instant, as before, and threatening to jerk the little storm-sail from its bolt-ropes. It was impossible to raise one's head above the rail, and difficult to breathe for a few seconds. We could do nothing but cower under the weather bulwarks, and hold on to the belaying pins, or whatever other objects presented themselves, to prevent being dashed to leeward, or swept overboard. The gale raged, now, precisely as long as it had done before we entered the vortex -two hours-showing how accurately Nature had drawn her circle.

At the end of this time, the Alabama found herself in posi tion No. 3. The reader will observe that she is still on the starboard tack, and that from east, she has brought her head around to nearly west. The storm is upon the point of passing away from her. I now again sent an officer below, to inspect the barometer, and he reported 29.70; the instrument having risen a little more than an inch in two hours! This, alone, is evidence of the violence of the storm. During the