Monstrous whirlpools make strange hollows in the sky. The
vapours revolve, the waves spin, the giddy Naiads roll; sea and sky are
livid; noises as of cries of despair are in the air.

Great sheaves of shadow and darkness are gathered up, trembling in the
far depths of the sky. Now and then there is a convulsion. The rumour
becomes tumult as the wave becomes surge. The horizon, a confused mass
of strata, oscillating ceaselessly, murmurs in a continual undertone.
Strange and sudden outbursts break through the monotony. Cold airs rush
forth, succeeded by warm blasts. The trepidation of the sea betokens
anxious expectation, agony, terror profound. Suddenly the hurricane
comes down, like a wild beast, to drink of the ocean: a monstrous
draught! The sea rises to the invisible mouth; a mound of water is
formed; the swell increases, and the waterspout appears; the Prester of
the ancients, stalactite above, stalagmite below, a whirling
double-inverted cone, a point in equilibrium upon another, the embrace
of two mountains--a mountain of foam ascending, a mountain of vapour
descending--terrible coition of the cloud and the wave. Like the column
in Holy Writ, the waterspout is dark by day and luminous by night. In
its presence the thunder itself is silent and seems cowed.

The vast commotion of those solitudes has its gamut, a terrible
crescendo. There are the gust, the squall, the storm, the gale, the
tempest, the whirlwind, the waterspout--the seven chords of the lyre of
the winds, the seven notes of the firmament. The heavens are a clear
space, the sea a vast round; but a breath passes, they have vanished,
and all is fury and wild confusion.

Such are these inhospitable realms.

The winds rush, fly, swoop down, dwindle away, commence again; hover
above, whistle, roar, and smile; they are frenzied, wanton, unbridled,
or sinking at ease upon the raging waves. Their howlings have a harmony
of their own. They make all the heavens sonorous. They blow in the cloud
as in a trumpet; they sing through the infinite space with the mingled
tones of clarions, horns, bugles, and trumpets--a sort of Promethean
fanfare.

Such was the music of ancient Pan. Their harmonies are terrible. They
have a colossal joy in the darkness. They drive and disperse great
ships. Night and day, in all seasons, from the tropics to the pole,
there is no truce; sounding their fatal trumpet through the tangled
thickets of the clouds and waves, they pursue the