vertiginous speed. Denser and denser grows this dome of vapours,
descending lower and lower upon the sea, narrowing the horizon
around the ship. And the characteristic aspect of westerly
weather, the thick, gray, smoky and sinister tone sets in,
circumscribing the view of the men, drenching their bodies,
oppressing their souls, taking their breath away with booming
gusts, deafening, blinding, driving, rushing them onwards in a
swaying ship towards our coasts lost in mists and rain.

The caprice of the winds, like the wilfulness of men, is fraught
with the disastrous consequences of self-indulgence. Long anger,
the sense of his uncontrolled power, spoils the frank and generous
nature of the West Wind. It is as if his heart were corrupted by a
malevolent and brooding rancour. He devastates his own kingdom in
the wantonness of his force. South-west is the quarter of the
heavens where he presents his darkened brow. He breathes his rage
in terrific squalls, and overwhelms his realm with an inexhaustible
welter of clouds. He strews the seeds of anxiety upon the decks of
scudding ships, makes the foam-stripped ocean look old, and
sprinkles with gray hairs the heads of ship-masters in the
homeward-bound ships running for the Channel. The Westerly Wind
asserting his sway from the south-west quarter is often like a
monarch gone mad, driving forth with wild imprecations the most
faithful of his courtiers to shipwreck, disaster, and death.

The south-westerly weather is the thick weather par excellence. It
is not the thickness of the fog; it is rather a contraction of the
horizon, a mysterious veiling of the shores with clouds that seem
to make a low-vaulted dungeon around the running ship. It is not
blindness; it is a shortening of the sight. The West Wind does not