feet above it. One flew on board, and measured roughly eighteen inches
between the tips of its wings. On Saturday, November 5, the trades left
us suddenly after a thunder-storm, which gave us an opportunity of
seeing chain lightning, which I only remember to have seen once in
England. As soon as the storm was over, we perceived that the wind was
gone, and knew that we had entered that unhappy region of calms which
extends over a belt of some five degrees rather to the north of the
line.

We knew that the weather about the line was often calm, but had pictured
to ourselves a gorgeous sun, golden sunsets, cloudless sky, and sea of
the deepest blue. On the contrary, such weather is never known there,
or only by mistake. It is a gloomy region. Sombre sky and sombre sea.
Large cauliflower-headed masses of dazzling cumulus tower in front of a
background of lavender-coloured satin. There are clouds of every shape
and size. The sails idly flap as the sea rises and falls with a heavy
regular but windless swell. Creaking yards and groaning rudder seem to
lament that they cannot get on. The horizon is hard and black, save
when blent softly into the sky upon one quarter or another by a rapidly
approaching squall. A puff of wind--"Square the yards!"--the ship
steers again; another--she moves slowly onward; it blows--she slips
through the water; it blows hard--she runs very hard--she flies; a drop
of rain--the wind lulls; three or four more of the size of half a crown-
-it falls very light; it rains hard, and then the wind is dead--whereon
the rain comes down in a torrent which those must see who would believe.
The air is so highly charged with moisture that any damp thing remains
damp and any dry thing dampens: the decks are always wet. Mould
springs up anywhere, even on the very boots which one is wearing; the
atmosphere is like that of a vapour bath, and the dense clouds seem to
ward off the light, but not the heat, of the sun. The dreary monotony