makes you dizzy with its headlong speed that depicts the rush of
the invisible air. A hard sou'-wester startles you with its close
horizon and its low gray sky, as if the world were a dungeon
wherein there is no rest for body or soul. And there are black
squalls, white squalls, thunder squalls, and unexpected gusts that
come without a single sign in the sky; and of each kind no one of
them resembles another.

There is infinite variety in the gales of wind at sea, and except
for the peculiar, terrible, and mysterious moaning that may be
heard sometimes passing through the roar of a hurricane--except for
that unforgettable sound, as if the soul of the universe had been
goaded into a mournful groan--it is, after all, the human voice
that stamps the mark of human consciousness upon the character of a
gale.



XXV.



There is no part of the world of coasts, continents, oceans, seas,
straits, capes, and islands which is not under the sway of a
reigning wind, the sovereign of its typical weather. The wind
rules the aspects of the sky and the action of the sea. But no
wind rules unchallenged his realm of land and water. As with the
kingdoms of the earth, there are regions more turbulent than
others. In the middle belt of the earth the Trade Winds reign
supreme, undisputed, like monarchs of long-settled kingdoms, whose