scissors and thumb-screws"; the captain was on deck; the ship, which
was light, rolling and pitching as tho she would shake the long sticks
out of her, and the sails were gaping open and splitting in every
direction. The mizzen-topsail, which was a comparatively new sail and
close reefed, split from head to foot in the bunt; the foretopsail
went in one rent from clew to earing, and was blowing to tatters; one
of the chain bobstays parted; the spritsailyard sprung in the slings,
the martingale had slued away off to leeward; and owing to the long
dry weather the lee rigging hung in large bights at every lurch. One
of the main-topgallant shrouds had parted; and to crown all, the
galley had got adrift and gone over to leeward, and the anchor on the
lee bow had worked loose and was thumping the side. Here was work
enough for all hands for half a day. Our gang laid out on the
mizzen-top-sailyard, and after more than half an hour's hard work
furled the sail, tho it bellied out over our heads, and again, by a
slat of the wind, blew in under the yard with a fearful jerk and
almost threw us off from the foot-ropes....

It was now eleven o'clock, and the watch was sent below to get
breakfast, and at eight bells (noon), as everything was snug, altho
the gale had not in the least abated, the watch was set and the other
watch and idlers sent below. For three days and three nights the gale
continued with unabated fury, and with singular regularity. There were
no lulls, and very little variation in its fierceness. Our ship, being
light, rolled so as almost to send the fore yard-arm under water, and
drifted off bodily to leeward. All this time there was not a cloud to
be seen in the sky, day or night; no, not so large as a man's hand.
Every morning the sun rose cloudless from the sea, and set again at
night in the sea in a flood of light. The stars, too, came out of the
blue one after another, night after night, unobscured, and twinkled as
clear as on a still frosty night at home, until the day came upon
them. All this time the sea was rolling in immense surges, white with
foam, as far as the eye could reach, on every side; for we were now
leagues and leagues from shore.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Born in Concord, Mass., in 1817; died in 1862; graduated
from Harvard in 1837; taught school; practised surveying;
lived alone at Walden Pond in 1845-47; a friend of Emerson
and Alcott; imprisoned for refusal to pay a t