atural reluctance is felt to shorten sail, at all
events, until the squall is so near that there is an absolute
necessity for doing so, and inexperienced officers are often deceived
by the unexpected velocity with which the gust comes down upon them.
Even the oldest sailors are apt to miscalculate the time likely to
elapse before the wind can touch them. In these cases, unless the men
be very active, the sails are torn, and sometimes a mast or a yard is
carried away. It is, besides, often doubtful whether there is wind or
merely a plump of rain in the squall; there are, therefore, few points
of distinction more remarkable between the seamanship of an old and a
young officer, than their power of judging of this matter. To a man
quite inexperienced, a squall may look in the highest degree
threatening; he will order the top-gallant clew-lines to be manned,
place hands by the topsail haulyards, and lay along the main
clew-garnets. His more experienced captain, however, being apprised of
the squall's approach, steps on deck, takes a hasty look to windward,
and says quietly to the officer of the watch, "Never mind, there's
nothing in it, it's only rain; keep the sails on her."

But although the older authority nine times in ten proves correct in
his judgment, even he might find it difficult, if not impossible, to
tell exactly upon what his confidence rested. Sailors boast, indeed,
of having an infallible test by which the point in question may be
ascertained, their secret being clothed in the following rhymes so to
call them:--

"If the rain's before the wind,
'Tis time to take the topsails in;
If the wind's before the rain,
Hoist your topsails up again."

The practical knowledge alluded to, however, comes not by rhymes, but
by experience alone, with a kind of intuitive confidence. Many long
and hard years of study, and myriads of forgotten trials must have
been gone through to give this enviable knowledge.

No experience, however, can altogether guard against these sudden
gusts or white squalls, since they make no show, except, sometimes, by
a rippling of the water along which they are sweeping. On the occasion
above alluded to there was not even this faint warning. The first
ships of the convoy touched by the blast were laid over almost on
their beam-ends, but in the next instant righted again, on the whole
of their sails being blown clean out of the bolt-ropes. The Theban
frigate and the Volage, then