Perhaps sand is not the right comparison. Consider it mud,
invisible, impalpable, but heavy as mud. Nay, it goes beyond
that. Consider every molecule of air to be a mud-bank in itself.
Then try to imagine the multitudinous impact of mud-banks--no, it
is beyond me. Language may be adequate to express the ordinary
conditions of life, but it cannot possibly express any of the
conditions of so enormous a blast of wind. It would have been
better had I stuck by my original intention of not attempting a
description.
I will say this much: The sea, which had risen at first, was
beaten down by that wind. More--it seemed as if the whole ocean
had been sucked up in the maw of the hurricane and hurled on
through that portion of space which previously had been occupied
by the air. Of course, our canvas had gone long before. But
Captain Oudouse had on the Petite Jeanne something I had never
before seen on a South Sea schooner a sea-anchor. It was a
conical canvas bag, the mouth of which was kept open by a huge
hoop of iron. The sea-anchor was bridled something like a kite,
so that it bit into the water as a kite bites into the air--but
with a difference.
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