travagant nature; but it was doomed to be
suddenly turned to despair, as the violence of the storm drove the ship
past the wreck. It became necessary to put her on the other tack, a
manoeuvre which the poor creatures construed into abandonment, and the
air rang with the most agonising shrieks of misery. But hope was again
raised, when a boat was lowered and a rope thrown on board for the
purpose of towing the junk to the ship. This intention was frustrated
by the windlass breaking. At sight of this one man, in a paroxysm of
despair, jumped overboard after the rope; but he missed it. Being a
good swimmer, he tried to reach the boat; but his feeble power could
avail him nothing in the midst of such raging elements: he speedily sank
to rise no more.

Another rope, however, was secured to the junk, and by means of it the
rest of the crew (eighteen in number) were saved. Their gratitude was
boundless. They almost worshipped the officers, the crew, and the
vessel, prostrating themselves and kissing the feet of the former, and
the very planks of the latter.

Well-built ships, however, are not always able to withstand the violence
of rotatory storms. Instances occur in which the tightest built and
best manned ships are destroyed as suddenly as the clumsiest of
ill-managed junks. Not many years ago, a vessel was proceeding
prosperously on her voyage, when signs of a coming tempest induced the
wary captain to reduce, and, finally, to take in all sail. But his
precautions were in vain. The storm burst on the devoted ship, and in a
few minutes the masts went over the side, and the hull lay a total wreck
upon the sea.

These hurricanes or cyclones, although in reality whirlwinds, are so
large that man's eye cannot measure them, and it is only by scientific
investigation that we have arrived at the knowledge of the fact. The
whirlwind, properly so called, is a much smaller body of atmosphere.
Sometimes we see miniature whirlwinds, even in our own temperate land,
passing along a road in autumn, lifting the leaves and dust into the air
and carrying them along in the form of a rotatory pillar. In other
regions they exert a power quite equal to the tempest, though in a more
limited space, overturning houses, uprooting trees, cutting a track
twenty or thirty yards wide through the dense forest as thoroughly as if
a thousand woodmen had been at work there for many years.

When whirlwinds pass from the land to the sea they