Woe betide the tyro; the fool-hardy, Heaven preserve! Your Mediterranean captain, who with a cargo of oranges has hitherto made merry runs across the Atlantic, without so much as furling a t'-gallant-sail, oftentimes, off Cape Horn, receives a lesson which he carries to the grave; though the grave--as is too often the case--follows so hard on the lesson that no benefit comes from the experience.
Other strangers who draw nigh to this Patagonia termination of our Continent, with their souls full of its shipwrecks and disasters--top-sails cautiously reefed, and everything guardedly snug--these strangers at first unexpectedly encountering a tolerably smooth sea, rashly conclude that the Cape, after all, is but a bugbear; they have been imposed upon by fables, and founderings and sinkings hereabouts are all cock-and-bull stories.
"Out reefs, my hearties; fore and aft set t'-gallant-sails! stand by to give her the fore-top-mast stun'-sail!" But, Captain Rash, those sails of yours were much safer in the sail-maker's loft.

For now, while the heedless craft is bounding over the billows, a black cloud rises out of the sea; the sun drops down from the sky; a horrible mist far and wide spreads over the water.
"Hands by the halyards! Let go! Clew up!" Too late.
For ere the ropes' ends can be the east off from the pins, the tornado is blowing down to the bottom of their throats.

The masts are willows, the sails ribbons, the cordage wool; the whole ship is brewed into the yeast of the gale.
An now, if, when the first green sea breaks over him, Captain Rash is not swept overboard, he has his hands full be sure.

In all probability his three masts have gone by the board, and, ravelled into list, his sails are floating in the air.

Or, perhaps, the ship _broaches to_, or is _brought by the lee_.