threatened the destruction of his vessel in
the harbour of Avarna. He, therefore,
employed natives to build a rough breakwater
of stones round the vessel, and to fasten
the chain cable to the main post of a large
school-room, which stood on a bank ten
feet high, forty or fifty yards from the sea,
to which room all the timber and ship's
stores were removed for safety. The next
day the storm raged with great violence,
and the rain poured down without ceasing.
Trees began to split and houses to fall.
The luxuriant groves and neat white
cottages were soon mere ruins, and the
screaming women were everywhere running wildly
with their children, seeking places of shelter
or dragging their property from the wreck.
The chapel fell in, and the natives were
driven to the mountains. The lightning
streamed from the black clouds, and the
thunder seemed to shake the island to its
very centre. The water for a mile from
the shore was several feet deep. This was
the crisis of the hurricane. The wind
shifting suddenly a few points to the west,
the sea almost instantly receded. To the
astonishment of the missionary his vessel
was found carried over a swamp and lodged
in a grove of chesnut trees, which had
stopped her being hurled into a bog several
hundred yards beyond.

In our brief record of tropical hurricanes,
the hurricane at sea must not be forgotten.
The log of the Calypso (Mr. Wilkinson,
master) furnishes us with some interesting
particulars of a storm of this kind in August,
1837. The vessel was, by observation at
the time, in latitude twenty-six degrees
forty-seven minutes north, and longitude
seventy-five degrees five minutes west.
The wind was about east-north-east. The
wind freshened till only double-reefed
topsails, reefed foresail, and mizen could be
earned. Next day the wind increased, the
ship laboured much, and the pumps had to be
constantly kept going. The day after, the
sea stove in the fore scuttle, and, it being
impossible to stop the leak, the chief mate
got a small axe, which he had carefully
sharpened a few days previous, and began to
cut away the mizen-mast. All at once the
vessel heeled over so that fourteen men and
the brave captain only saved themselves with
difficulty. The ship was sinking fast.
Some of the survivors instantly began cutting
the weather lanyards of the rigging,
while others called to God for mercy, or
remained stupefied with despair. The
moment, however, the lanyards were cut,
the three masts went by the board, and the
vessel lighted, though but slowly. The boats
were gone, the main hatches were stove in,
the planks of the deck were everywhere
starting, the hold was full of rum-puncheons,
which were dashing about loose, the shattered
gunwales were only a few feet from
the level of the sea, which broke over the
vessel as if she were a mere log. When the
hurricane lulled, the pumps were mended,
and set constantly at work, and the wreck
of the masts cut away. When the water in
the hold sank to nine feet, a spare spar was
rigged for a jury-mast, and a sail set on it.
On the second of September the crew, after
undergoing fearful hardships, got the ship
into Wilmington safely. There was never,
perhaps, an instance of a vessel so
completely disabled by a hurricane, so entirely
stripped of masts, sails, and ropes, reaching
a distant port in safety. Only the promptitude
and energy of the captain, and the
untiring exertions of the crew could have
saved a ship all but water-logged.

The European hurricane, in comparison
with such storms as these, is but as a child
compared to a giant. The worst it can do on l
and is to hurl down chimney-pots, strike
down trees, and now and then blow down a
steeple. Perhaps one of the most sudden
and violent European storms known was
that of July, 1786, when a raging wind,
driving before it clouds of hail, or rather blocks
of ice of great size, hard as diamonds, and so
elastic that they rebounded from the ground,
swept over the greater part of France.
Between St. Germain and Marly, the
lumps of ice, weighing from eight to ten
ounces, destroyed every growing crop, and
nearly all the fruit trees. All hopes of
a harvest were in a few minutes entirely
ruined. These ice missiles cut to pieces a
forest of chesnut trees near Marly, so that
it seemed to have been fired at with cannon.
The lucerne, the pulse, the corn, and the
vines were all beaten to pieces or driven
into the ground. Houses and cottages were
unroofed, windows everywhere destroyed,
cows, sheep, and lambs killed, and many of
the poor, on their way to mass, wounded or
maimed. The steeple of a church at
Gallandon fell, crashing in the roof of the
choir at the very moment of the elevation
of the host. The frightened people fell
backward in terror, crying out with one
voice, "The Lord have mercy upon us,
miserable sinners!" No one was, however,
injured. A church at Tours was blown
down by the storm. Luckily there was
no one in it but the curé, who, though
almost frightened to death, saved himself
under the arch of a fountain in the choir.
Three windmills in another district were