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Shortly after the shock, a great wave was seen from the distance of three or four miles, approaching in the middle of the bay with a smooth outline; but along the shore it tore up cottages and trees, as it swept onwards with irresistible force. At the head of the bay it broke in a fearful line of white breakers, which rushed up to a height of 23 vertical feet above the highest spring-tides.
Had this gale happened in spring-tides when the current was strong we must have been driven to sea in a very helpless condition. The boat which the writer steered was considerably behind the other, one of the masons having unluckily broken his oar.
The dismay that is upon us all, in the business of the kingdom and Navy at this day, is not to be expressed otherwise than by the condition the citizens were in when the City was on fire, nobody knowing which way to turn themselves, while everything concurred to greaten the fire; as here the easterly gale and spring-tides for coming up both rivers, and enabling them to break the chaine.
In a measure it has done so, but in a flickering, uncertain manner; they read odd bits which come drifting to their homes in irregular ways, just as people on the coast light their fires with fragments of wreck, chance-thrown by the stormy spring-tides on the beach.
The bay or roadstead of Ampanam is extensive, and being at this season sheltered from the prevalent southeasterly winds, was as smooth as a lake. The beach of black volcanic sand is very steep, and there is at all times, a heavy surf upon it, which during spring-tides increases to such an extent that it is often impossible for boats to land, and many serious accidents have occurred.
Especially, what conception of life holds the highest facts, the great irresistible spring-tides, which sometimes rise within the soul, of hope and love and desire? So Browning's Bishop, turning on his critic, says: "And now what are we? unbelievers both, Calm and complete, determinately fixed To-day, to-morrow, and forever, pray? You'll guarantee me that? Not so, I think. In nowise!
The foundation of the tower, sunk into the solid rock, was just three feet three inches above low water of the lowest spring-tides, so that the lighthouse may be said with propriety to be founded beneath the waves.
By means of abundant nourishing food and much ease, the crew began to recover their health and spirits, and were soon able to take on board wood and water, though with considerable difficulty, as a very heavy swell set in from the northwards at the full and change of the moon, so that they had to wait till after the spring-tides were over, before they were able to get any thing off.
Yet during the whole of the period, though the thermometer often stood below 18 degrees Fahrenheit, and the estuary of the Tees several miles below Stockton, where the spring-tides rise from twelve to eighteen feet, was for two months frozen over, so as to allow the passage of a loaded waggon, I could never perceive a particle of ice adhering to the rock or gravel, in the bed of the small and rapid river Leven in Cleveland, where I then resided.
The ex-archbishop of Toledo could not doubt that the terrors of the Church would make those brown veterans tremble who could confront so tranquilly the spring-tides of the North Sea, and the batteries of Vere and Nassau. So he launched a manifesto, as highly spiced as a pamphlet of Marnig, and as severe as a sentence of Torquemada.
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