bird hovered over
our heads, and suddenly alighted on our taffrail: it was one of
"Mother Carey's chickens," which by mariners are considered as
harbingers of ill, and generally of a furious storm. At a warning of
this kind I did not then feel disposed to take alarm; but there were
other warnings not to be slighted--the horizon to the east presented
the extraordinary appearance of a black cloud in the shape of a bow,
with its convex towards the sea, and which kept its singular shape and
position unchanged until nightfall. For the period too of twenty
minutes after the setting of the sun, the clouds to the north-west
continued of the colour of blood; but that which most attracted our
observation was, to us, a remarkable phenomenon--the sea immediately
around us, and, as far as the eye could discern by the light of the
moon, appeared, for about forty minutes, of a perfectly milk white. We
were visited by two more chickens of Mother Carey, both of which
sought refuge, with our first visiter, on the mainmast. We sounded,
but found no bottom at a hundred fathoms; a bucket of the water was
then drawn up, the surface of which was apparently covered with
innumerable sparks of fire--an effect said to be caused by the
animalculae which abound in sea-water: it is at all times common, but
the sparks are not in general so numerous, nor of such magnitude, as
were those which then presented themselves. The hand too, being dipped
in the water, and immediately withdrawn, thousands of them would seem
to adhere to it. A dismal hollow breeze, which, as the night drew on,
howled through our rigging, and infused into us all a sombre,
melancholy feeling, increased by gathering clouds, and the altogether
portentous state of the atmosphere and elements, ushered in the first
watch, which was to be kept by Thomson.

About eight o'clock, loud claps of thunder, each in kind resembling a
screech, or the blast of a trumpet, rather than the rumbling sound of
thunder in Europe, burst over our heads, and were succeeded by vivid
flashes of forked lightning. We now made every necessary preparation
for a storm, by striking the top-gallant-masts, with their yards,
close reefing the topsails and foresail, bending the storm-staysail,
and battening down the main hatch, over which two tarpaulins were
nailed, for the better preservation of the cargo. We observed
innumerable shoals of fishes, the motions of which appeared to be more
than usually vivid and redun