, planks, cables, and empty barrels.
A crowd of people soon arrived, accompanied by their negroes, loaded with
provisions and rigging. One of the most aged of the planters approaching
the governor, said to him, 'We have heard all night hoarse noises in the
mountain, and in the forests: the leaves of the trees are shaken, although
there is no wind: the sea birds seek refuge upon the land: it is certain
that all those signs announce a hurricane.' 'Well, my friends,' answered
the governor, 'we are prepared for it: and no doubt the vessel is also.'

"Every thing, indeed, presaged the near approach of the hurricane. The
centre of the clouds in the zenith was of a dismal black, while their
skirts were fringed with a copper hue. The air resounded with the cries of
the frigate bird, the cur water, and a multitude of other sea birds, who,
notwithstanding the obscurity of the atmosphere, hastened from all points
of the horizon to seek for shelter in the island.

"Towards nine in the morning we heard on the side of the ocean the most
terrific noise, as if torrents of water, mingled with thunder, were rolling
down the steeps of the mountains. A general cry was heard of, 'There is the
hurricane!' and in one moment a frightful whirlwind scattered the fog which
had covered the Isle of Amber and its channel. The Saint Geran then
presented itself to our view, her gallery crowded with people, her yards
and main topmast laid upon the deck, her flag shivered, with four cables at
her head, and one by which she was held at the stern. She had anchored
between the Isle of Amber and the main land, within that chain of breakers
which encircles the island, and which bar she had passed over, in a place
where no vessel had ever gone before. She presented her head to the waves
which rolled from the open sea; and as each billow rushed into the straits,
the ship heaved, so that her keel was in air; and at the same moment her
stern, plunging into the water, disappeared altogether, as if it were
swallowed up by the surges. In this position, driven by the winds and waves
towards the shore, it was equally impossible for her to return by the
passage through which she had made her way; or, by cutting her cables, to
throw herself upon the beach, from which she was separated by sand banks,
mingled with breakers. Every billow which broke upon the coast advanced
roaring to the bottom of the bay, and threw planks to the distance of fifty
feet upon the land; then