Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/53

 hour. These typhoons are circular and perhaps a mile or more in diameter. In half an hour we had passed through the outer rim into the center, and for about twenty minutes there was a lull of the wind, although the sea was running very high. Then as we again approached the edge of the cyclone it struck the ship with increased fury from the opposite direction. This was the crisis of the storm. For a few minutes we lay in a trough of the sea, and before steerage way could be got on the vessel she shipped several heavy seas, which tore up the guards around the paddle boxes, demolished the bath rooms and cattle pens, dashed one of the sailors from the upper deck, injuring him so severely that the poor fellow died the next day. Any accident at this moment to the machinery would have been fatal to the ship. She would have become a wreck and foundered in spite of the most skillful seamanship. No small boat could live for a moment or even be launched in such a gale.

We clung to the positions we had taken in the upper cabin and main deck, and for a while we held our breath, waiting for what was to come next. Such was the noise of the wind and banging against the ship of the waves, that we could not tell whether the engines had stopped or not. The Chinese passengers had been securely fastened below, lest they should rush on deck in a panic and do some mischief. To say that at such a time I was not alarmed, would be idle bravado; at all events I kept quiet and held on, and thought what a fool I had been to put myself, without any good excuse, in such a position. Even then I could not help laughing at a comical scene within a few feet of where I was standing. Among our passengers was a Peruvian, of very gentlemanly appearance and excessively polite manners, who was on his way to China to purchase a cargo of coolies. He was now the worst frightened man on the ship. He fell on his knees, and, crossing himself, muttered his long neglected prayers in Spanish to the Holy Virgin and all the saints in the Romish calendar.

But the engines moved steadily on, although at times one of the paddle-boxes would be completely under water, so that the strain upon the shafts was fearful. In the meantime, while the gale was at its height, one of the boats and all the settees upper deck had broken loose from their fastenings, and were dancing a lively jig