The 18th August, the birthday of our Emperor, was duly celebrated far on the open ocean, in the middle of the China Sea. All was prepared for Divine worship, which was to be celebrated at 10 A.M. on the gun-deck, in presence of the staff and the entire crew. The Commodore had invited several gentlemen of the staff to dinner. On land no one thinks of consulting the elements, when such a festival is to be observed, nor do the guests waste many thoughts on wind, rain, and heavy seas, as they assemble in their comfortable chambers. At sea, on the other hand, the conditions are altered. Wind and weather are the masters here, whose behests the sea-farer must attend to. This was our case on this 18th of August.
First, Divine service had to be dispensed with, because the sea became too heavy, rendering it necessary to close the port-holes in the gun-deck, where, as already mentioned, the service was to be performed. As the hour for the festival drew nigh, the elements gave unmistakeable evidence of their determined hostility; there was no room any longer to
doubt that we were about to do battle with a regular Typhoon.[189] This species of storm, which is very customary at the change of the monsoons in August, September, and October, when the N.E. trade suddenly veers round and becomes the S.W. monsoon, is, like the tornado of the West Indies, the Pampero of the eastern coast of South America, and the hurricane of the Mauritius, a whirlwind of the most colossal proportions and most tremendous fury, by which the atmosphere is swept in a circle at an astonishing velocity around a central point more or less calm, which does not, however, remain stationary, but is continually progressing, and hence they are usually termed cyclones, or circular storms, to distinguish them from those other storms in which the wind moves in a straight line. It has been reserved for scientific investigation to explain the extraordinary regularity of the laws in obedience to which the masses of air, in the case of such storms occurring in the Southern hemisphere, move in the direction of the hands of a clock, whereas in the Northern hemisphere they are rotated in an opposite direction. In like manner, the direction of the centre round which the cyclone is raging has been definitely ascertained, so that, provided with these data, it is not merely possible for the navigator to hold aloof
from the dangerous central point of these circular storms, where the best and stoutest ship that ever floated must almost to a certainty be swallowed up, but even to avail himself of the wind to reach the edge of the cyclone (the breadth of whose path is from 300 to 1000 miles), and thus make a rapid and prosperous passage. By mid-day the wind had increased to such an extent that we had to take in most of our sails, and reef the rest. The sea now rose, and many of its waves came thundering upon our decks. The vessel was tossed to and fro with such violence that everything which had not been made fast, or was attached to the vessel, began to lurch from side to side. Nevertheless, the invited guests sat down to table, made the seats and the table fast, and, such at least whom the violent rocking did not make sea-sick, partook of a pleasant and joyous meal. But even these precautions did not prevent numerous unpleasant accidents. One tremendous lurch of the ship, which took us unawares, suddenly set adrift a number of our mess, who rolled over and over each other upon that unstable floor, amid a hideous chaos of tumblers, bottles, plates, and crockery. Chairs and fauteuils had their legs broken, everything breakable went into irretrievable smash, the convives escaping serious injury only by a marvel. Once more they took their seats at table, where only the bare cloth gave promise of security, and endeavoured to anchor themselves more firmly. When, at the conclusion of the meal, our Commodore gave the usual toast, and his guests
emptied their glasses to the health of the reigning monarch, the band attempted to strike up the National Anthem, and a hearty cheer resounded above the groaning of the ship, the howling of the wind, and the sullen roar of the ever-increasing waves, as they lashed against the ship's sides.
The sun went down behind clouds, as we went careering along under close-reefed main sail and storm stay-sail over a confused sea, running mountains high, and with huge heavy grey masses of cloud and mist close overhead; the barometer was still falling, and as night closed in the wind sung mournfully, yet with almost deafening noise, through the masts and rigging. The wind now shifted and sprung up from N.E. by N., which being an additional sign that the centre of the cyclone was receding, we felt assured that we were on the right side to keep clear of it. By midnight the wind came still further round, till it stood steadily at N.E., when it acquired fresh strength, and blew a most violent hurricane. The centre of the cyclone had once more altered its course, and begun to move in our direction.
Our position at noon (27° 25′ N. and 125° 23′ E.) was the most unfavourable possible. We had a N.E. wind, and were in the N.E. section of the typhoon, whose centre, as is customary in these storms, was moving in a N.W. or W. direction, and therefore threatened the more readily to overtake us, that our course lay S.E. through the wide channel, which leads from the Chinese Sea into the open ocean
between the Loo-Choo Islands and the Meiaco-sima group. There was now no other egress possible than by steering W. by S. to get away from the advancing centre of the whirlwind, on which course we would have to steer for the N. extremity of the Island of Formosa.
The night of 18th and 19th of August was, in the fullest sense of the word, a night of storms. Towards midnight we once more set double-reefed foresail in order to lie our course of west by south. Had we calculated aright the course of the centre of the cyclone, the wind as we advanced should have drawn ahead, as we were now keeping it on our larboard beam.
Daybreak of the 19th found us beneath a gloomy, angry-looking, cloudy grey canopy on every side, the clouds hanging quite low, till they seemed to brood upon the surface of the sea, now lashed into fury by the violence of the storm. The look-out could scarcely see a cable's length clear of the ship. Deluges of rain, lashes of spray, driven on board by the tremendous violence of the wind, enveloped us in a strange, half-mysterious obscurity. Towards the N.E. a compact bank of bluish grey clouds indicated the centre of the cyclone. The motion of the ship was so violent that one of her quarter-boats got filled with water, which at every lurch was washed upon the frigate's quarter-deck like a small cascade. Sometimes they became so full that they threatened to wrench the davits from their fastenings. The gun-deck was afloat with spray lashed on board with each pitch of the