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Down the hill, along by the shops, and Skepsey, in sight of Miss Nesta's terrace, considered it still an early hour for a visitor; so, to have the sea about him, he paid pier-money, and hurried against the briny wings of a South-wester; green waves, curls of foam, flecks of silver, under low- flying grey-dark cloud-curtains shaken to a rift, where at one shot the sun had a line of Nereids nodding, laughing, sparkling to him.
The sky now assumed a different appearance the white clouds had been exchanged for others dark and murky, the wind roared at intervals, and the rain came down in torrents. Captain Wilson went down into the cabin to examine the barometer. "The barometer has risen," said he on his return on deck. "Is the wind steady?" "No, sir, she's up and off three points." "This will end in a south-wester."
The heavy butler essayed to speak, but the tremendous blow and the baronet's gesture choked him. At the door he made another effort which shook the rolls of his loose skin pitiably. An impatient signal sent him out dumb, and Raynham was quit of the one believer in the Great Shaddock dogma. It was the month of July. The Solent ran up green waves before a full-blowing South-wester.
I hear it still of a night in my dreams, and wake up and thank God that after all it is only our own gallant south-wester, which, if somewhat unreasonably boisterous at times, and over fond of showing what it can do, is still an honest wind, and devoid of treachery. For we were but ill-clad at best, and were always lacking in the matter of fuel, and many other things that make for comfort.
The ground was unpleasantly pitted and holed; the camels were weak with semi-starvation and the depressing south-wester; Lieutenant Amir put his dromedary to speed, resulting in a nose-flattening fall; and the Sayyid nearly followed suit. This is our second day of Khamsin; yet on the northern slope of the great Fiumara we meet the cool land-wind.
We also got a man, Eben Dredge, in place of poor John Major lost overboard. Still the south-wester blustered and roared. Some of the men declared that it had set in for good, and that there never would be any other wind as long as the world lasted. At length one morning when Medley and I were below, we heard the first mate shouting, "All hands up anchor! Fair wind, boys!
The wearer’s legs were bare down to the very feet, which were protected by coarse shoes of heavy leather, fastened about the ancles by a thong, with a clasp of marvellously ill-cleaned brass. Upon his head he had a petasus, or broad-brimmed hat of gray felt, fitting close to the skull, with a long fall behind, not very unlike in form to the south-wester of a modern seaman.
Were called up at midnight to slip for a violent north-easter, for this rascally hole of San Pedro is unsafe in every wind but a south-wester, which is seldom known to blow more than once in a half century. We went off with a flowing sheet, and hove-to under the lee of Catalina island, where we lay three days, and then returned to our anchorage. Tuesday, Feb. 23d.
I mind the time, for it's not long ago, that nineteen fine ships were lost altogether, about here. It was a bad year for the underwriters, and for the owners too, let me tell you. I was on board the Rattler, a fine new ship, when, in company with many others, we were beset, not far from Cape York, by the ice driven in by a strong south-wester.
Nothing so startling as this occurred to us again; but the serenity of our thoughts was in some degree interrupted, a few days afterwards, by the north-easterly Trade-wind dying away, and a gentle south-wester springing up in its place.
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