Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/35

25 when he might (had he known this arrangement of the air-currents) have sailed down on the track of the trade wind. Returning, he committed an equal error by working his weary way to Europe against this steady north-east wind. In the equatorial region the atmosphere—impelled sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another, and often almost without motion in the equilibrium of a calm, loaded with vapour, and heated by a torrid sun—oppresses both body and spirit. Drenching showers, gusts of wind, and waterspouts are frequent. The latter, in the distance, are interesting enough; but when too near, are viewed by the mariner with great dread. A whirlwind creating a vacuum in its centre, the water of the ocean rushes up to fill it, while the cloud above descends to meet the ascending column. It passes over the face of the ocean with a rotary motion, and at times crossing the track of a vessel, tears its sails and spars to pieces.

The squalls, or sudden gusts of wind and rain, though less romantic than the waterspout, are more useful, as they afford the voyager an opportunity to fill his empty water-casks. During a heavy shower, the lee scuppers, by which the water makes its escape, would be stopped till Rh