. These hurricanes
are extremely dangerous, and are far more frequent in the American
seas than in the East Indies. They usually happen at that season of
the year when the west monsoon reigns, which is from the 20th July to
the 15th October, for which reason ships usually remain then in port
till they think the danger is over. Yet as storms of this kind are not
exactly periodical, ships that trust to such calculations are often
caught, as there are some years in which there are no hurricanes, and
others in which they are more frequent and violent, and at unusual
periods. The ordinary, or at least the surest sign of an approaching
hurricane, is very fair weather, and so dead a calm that not even a
wrinkle is to be seen on the surface of the sea. A very dark cloud is
then seen to rise in the air, not larger than a man's hand, and in a
very little time the whole sky becomes overcast. The wind then begins
to blow from the west, and in a short space of time, whirls round the
compass, swelling the sea to a dreadful height; and as the wind blows
now on one side and then on the other, the contrary waves beat so
forcibly on the ships that they seldom escape foundering or shipwreck.
On first perceiving the before-mentioned small cloud, the best thing
a ship can do is to stand out to sea. It is remarkable that the
hurricanes are less frequent as we approach the higher latitudes in
either hemisphere, so that they are not to be feared beyond the lat.
of 55 deg. either S. or N. It is also remarked, that hurricanes rarely
happen in the middle of the wide ocean, but chiefly on the coasts of
such countries as abound with minerals, and off the mouths of large
rivers. Another surprising phenomenon at sea is what is called a
whirlwind water-spout, or syphon, which often carries up high into
the air whatever comes within the circle of its force, as fish,
grasshoppers, and other things, where they appear like a thick vapour
or cloud. The English fire at a water-spout or whirlwind, and often
succeed in stopping its progress; the circular motion ceasing, and all
that it had taken up falling immediately down, when the sea becomes
presently calm.

On the cessation of the hurricane, the commodore and his remaining
consort, the African galley, continued their course to the S.S.W. till
in the height of the Straits of Magellan. They here fell in with an
island of near 200 leagues in circumference, and about 14 leagues from
the mainland of America,