Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/64

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from an atmosphere glowing with the fierce rays of a vertical sun, the storm is seen brooding in the horizon, which soon becomes of a pitchy blackness; the dark volume silently and slowly approaches; not a breath ruffles the glassy surface of the main, until, in an instant, it bursts in all the fury of elemental strife. Thomson has so happily painted these equatorial squalls, that I cannot help transcribing the passage:

        ———In blazing height of noon,
The sun, oppressed, is plung'd in thickest gloom.
Still Horror reigns, a dreary twilight round,
Of struggling night and day malignant mix'd.
For to the hot equator crouding fast,
Where highly rarefy'd, the yielding air
Admits their stream, incessant vapours roll,
Amazing clouds on clouds continual, heap'd,
Or whirl'd impetuous, by the gusty wind,
Or silent borne along, heavy and slow,
With the big stores of steaming ocean charg'd.