About one a.m.a cry arose from the night-watch that the boats were swamping.

All hands turned out, lading was removed, and the scows hauled up on the shingle, the rollers piling on shore with a height and fury perfectly astonishing for such a lake.

By morning the tempest was at its height, continuing all day and into the night.

The sunset that evening exhibited some of the grandest and wildest sky scenery we had ever beheld.

In the west a vast bank of luminous orange cloud, edged by torn fringes of green and gray; in the south a sea of amethyst, and stretching from north to east masses of steel gray and pearl, shot with brilliant shafts and tufts of golden vapour.