Higher rose the wind, heavier rolled
the sea, yet never a drop of water did we ship, nor did anything
about the deck betoken what a heavy gale was blowing. During
the worst of the weather, and just after the wind had shifted
back into the N.E., making an uglier cross sea than ever get up,
along comes an immense four-masted iron ship homeward bound. She
was staggering under a veritable mountain of canvas, fairly
burying her bows in the foam at every forward drive, and actually
wetting the clews of the upper topsails in the smothering masses
of spray, that every few minutes almost hid her hull from sight.
It was a splendid picture; but--for the time--I felt glad I was
not on board of her. In a very few minutes she was out of our
ken, followed by the admiration of all. Then came, from the
other direction, a huge steamship, taking no more notice of the
gale than as if it were calm. Straight through the sea she
rushed, dividing the mighty rollers to the heart, and often
bestriding three seas at once, the centre one spreading its many
tons of foaming water fore and aft, so that from every orifice
spouted the seething brine. Compared with these greyhounds of the
wave, we resembled nothing so much as some old lightship bobbing
serenely around, as if part and parcel of the mid-Atlantic.
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