f our mainmast,
surpassing in height even those which my old friend Larrikins had
described as `mountings 'igh.'

I had seen already in my trips in the _Martin_ up and down Channel what
I fancied at the time to be rough weather; but, never in my life
previously had I ever seen such a scene of grandeur as the ocean
presented that stormy afternoon!

Far and wide, it seethed and boiled like a huge cauldron, its surface
covered with foam as white as snow, which the dark setting of inky
clouds along the horizon brought out in whiter relief.

Above, masses of ragged wrack scudded aimlessly across the sky, whose
leaden hue was cheerless and grim, save where, in the west, the sun went
down suddenly in a wrath of crimson majesty, the darkness of night
descending on the scene as if a curtain of _crepe_, had been let down
the moment after he vanished beneath the waste of angry waters,
unlightened by a single ray of his customary after-glow.

Apparently the tempest-loving demons of the deep were only waiting for
the shades of night in order to carry on their revels with the greater
`go' at our expense; for no sooner had the evening closed in than the
gale increased in force, and the sea waxed even angrier, so that by Four
Bells in the first watch, that is at ten o'clock, in landsman's
parlance, the ship had to lie-to under storm staysails--pitching and
plunging bows under, and taking in some of the huge rollers occasionally
over her forecastle, that swept down into the waist to such an extent
that it was as much as the scuppers could do to get rid of the water as
she rolled.

Fortunately, we did not get any of this below, the hatches having been
battened down early in the afternoon, subsequently to our mishap with
the `gashing-tub'; but, although this saved us some wet, it was far from
pleasant on our mess-deck, the steam from the wet clothes of the fellows
belonging to the watch just relieved, and the smell of the bilge from
the place being shut up, making it resemble towards morning something
like what I have read of an African slaver's hold being in the middle
latitudes.

When day broke, I found, on turning out of my hammock, our ship riding a
little easier, the rolling having abated considerably; and, on going on
deck shortly afterwards, though there was no order as usual to `lash up
and stow,' the weather being too rough for that, the reason for this
change for the better, so far as the uneasy motion was concerned, beca