RED FOG OR SHOWER-DUST. 229 took possession of it, and called it Graham Island. He found the form of the crater to approach that of a perfect circle, and to be complete along its whole circumference, excepting for about two hundred and fifty yards on the south-east side, which was broken and low, apparently not above three feet high. The whole circuit of the island he conceived to be from a mile and a quarter to a mile and one-third. In the month of December following the whole island had disappeared. The island of Santorin, one of the Greek islands called the Cyclades, is one of the most extraordinary instances of submarine volcanic action. During the last two thousand years several new islands have been formed in this locality, and singular phenomena have been exhibited even of late years. Earthquakes are very closely related to volcanoes, although by no means confined to volcanic districts. Instances of this phenomenon at sea are frequently recorded by navigators. In most cases the motion felt on board is compared with that experienced when a ship strikes on a rock under water. During the earthquake at Lisbon, an English vessel, sailing at a distance of about fifty miles from the coast of Portugul, experienced a shock of such violence that a part of the deck was damaged. The captain, much surprised, thought that a great mistake must have crept into his reckoning, and that his vessel had got on a rock. He gave orders to put out the long boat, to save the crew, but he was soon convinced there was no danger. The source whence earthquakes originate, the power by which the ground is convulsed, is withdrawn from our investigation. The eye of the most inquisitive naturalist cannot reach it. The substances which are brought up by earthquakes bear evident signs of having endured the action of fire. It is supposed that these phenomena are produced by the efforts of accumulated elastic vapours to escape from the bowels of the earth. Another phenomenon I may allude to is the Red-Fog or ShowerDust, encountered by vessels at sea occasionally, and especially in the vicinity of the Cape de Verd Islands. What these showers precipitate in the Mediterranean is called "sirocco-dust," and in 230 SUPPOSED TO COME FROM AFRICA. other parts "African dust," because the winds which accompany them are supposed to come from the Sirocco desert, or some other parched land of the continent of Africa. The dust is of a brickred or cinnamon colour, and it sometimes comes down in such quantities as to cover the sails and rigging, though the vessel may be hundreds of miles from the land. This dust, when subjected to the microscope, is found to consist for the most part of exceedingly minute animal and vegetable organisms, probably derived from some of the great river valleys of South America, being lifted up in vast clouds of impalpable sands by the fierce gales of the equinox. CHAPTER XXI. SUPERSTITIONS CONNECTED WITH THE OCEAN. "I saw the new moon late yestreen And if we go to sea, master, I fear we'll come to harm." Old Ballad. 鮮 T is not surprising that men accustomed to the monotony of a seafaring life, remote from the educational influences afforded to those on land, with the many wonders of the vast ocean around them, full of strange mystery, which science only can partially unveil; with minds thus generally untutored, and consequently more susceptible to superstitious fancies, it is not astonishing that such persons should be among the most credulous of mankind. It is true that the spread of knowledge in modern times has removed many of the absurd notions peculiar to seamen ; but, as a class, they may still be considered among the foremost believers in the supernatural. From the earliest times the sea has been regarded as the region of fabulous marvels. The ancient mariners performed their voyages in a vague mist of capricious doubts and fancies, omens and prognostics, which excited terror or inspired confidence. Every object that met their gaze was endowed by them with some miraculous agency for good or for evil. Their course over unknown waters, peopled by their mythology with imaginary creatures, would naturally create awe and suspicion. 232 PRODIGIES AT SEA IN ANCIENT TIMES. Horace, lamenting at Virgil's departure for Athens, rebukes the impiety of the first mariner, who ventured, in the audacity of his heart, to go afloat, and cross the briny barrier interposed between nations. He esteems a merchant favoured specially by the gods should he twice or thrice return in safety from a distant cruise. He tells us he himself had known the terrors of the dark gulf of the Adriatic, and had experienced the treachery of the western gale. Ancient writers are diffuse in the description of prodigies witnessed by mariners at sea, many of which, doubtless originating from simple causes, received the addition of a divine interposition. The sudden breaking up of a dense fog, and the sun shining in undimmed splendour, was attributed to the appearance of Apollo himself, as the saints in later ages were supposed to miraculously intervene for the protection of seamen. Apollonius of Rhodes, the Greek poet, describes the Argonauts (Greek heroes who, under the command of Jason, went in search of the Golden Fleece) as suddenly benighted at sea in broad daylight by a dense black fog. They pray to Apollo, and he descends from heaven, and alighting on a rock, holds up his illustrious bow, which shoots a guiding light farther to an island. The delusions of these pagan times continued through succeeding ages, modified only by the change of religion and a better knowledge of navigation. The direct influence of the heathen deities was transferred in Catholic times to the Virgin and the saints, and this belief under various forms still prevails in some foreign countries, where the divine light of evangelical truth has not pierced, while other phases of superstition still linger among our own sailors as regards omens, good luck, and a number of other senseless notions. The monks in the middle ages were zealous chroniclers of saintly interpositions at sea. In 1226, we are told, the Earl of Salisbury, while returning to England, was so nearly shipwrecked on his voyage, that everything, including articles of great value, was thrown into the sea to lighten the ship. In the moment of greatest danger, a brilliant taper was seen on the top of the mast, and near to it a damsel of surpassing beauty, who protected the light from SUPERSTITIONS OF SARDINIAN FISHERMEN. 233 the wind and rain. This sight inspired the Earl and the sailors with fresh courage, and the presence was assumed to be that of the Virgin, to whom the Earl, from the day of his knighthood, had ordered a taper to be burnt at her shrine. It is probable, also, that the Earl had bestowed other and more substantial gifts on the Church; and this legend would, probably, excite others to similar benefactions. Edward III., after the surrender of Calais, on his return to England encountered a violent storm. "Oh, Blessed Virgin!" he exclaimed, "Holy Lady! why is it, and what does it portend, that in going to France I enjoyed a favourable wind, a calm sea, and all things prospered with me; but on returning to England all kinds of misfortunes befall me?" Of course the monkish historians relate that this expostulation had the desired effect, and the storm suddenly subsided. The fishermen of Sardinia appear to indulge in a plurality of saints to favour their vocation. Tyndale, in his account of that island, gives an interesting description of the superstitious observances of the sailors. "Amidst the cheers," he says, "of the men at having made a good capture of fish, a general silence prevailed; the leader, in his little boat, having checked the hilarity, and assumed a priestly as well as a piscatorial character, taking off his cap-an example followed by all his company-commenced a species of chant or litany, an invocation of the saints, to which an ora pro nobis (“pray for us") chorus was made by the sailors. After the Virgin Mary had been appealed to, and her protection against accidents particularly requested, as the ancients did to Neptune, a series of saints were called over, half of whose names I knew not, but who were evidently influential persons in the fishing department. St. George was supplicated to drive away all enemies of the tunny from the imaginary 'lammia,' or sorceress, to the real shark or sword-fish. St. Peter was reminded of the holy miracle performed for him by an application to confer a similar miraculous draught on the present occasion, and (perhaps to counterbalance the difficulty in case of his refusal) a petition was offered up to St. Anthony of Padua, |