"The first that we saw appeared on the northern coast, between us and the island Quesomo, about a gun-shot from the ship: we directly perceived the water boiled on the surface of the sea, and was raised about a foot: it was whitish, and the top appeared like a thick black smoke, so that it properly resembled some burning straw, which only smoked. It made a noise like a torrent that runs with rapidity into a deep valley. This noise was mixed with another, similar to the hissing of serpents: a little afterwards we perceived something like a dark pipe, which resembled smoke ascending towards the clouds, turning round with great velocity: this appeared about the thickness of my finger, and the same noise still continued. After this it disappeared, having remained somewhat less than a quarter of an hour. This over, we perceived another on the south side, which began in the same manner as the preceding: directly after a third made its appearance on the west, and then a fourth by its side. The farthest of them was not more than a musket-shot from us. They all appeared like burning heaps of straw, a foot and a half or two feet high, and were attended with the same noise as the first. We afterwards saw three pipes or canals descending from the clouds to the water. They were broad at the top and lessened downwards, something in the shape of a trumpet, or as the paps of an animal, drawn perpendicularly down by a heavy weight. These canals appeared of a darkish white, occasioned, as I think, by the waters which were in them; for apparently they were formed before the water entered, as when they were empty they were no longer to be seen, like as a clear glass tube placed at some distance before our eyes, is not perceptible if it is not filled with some coloured liquor. These pipes were not strait but crooked in some places; they were not even perpendicular, but from the clouds, where they were joined, to the parts which drew in the water, they were very much bent; and what is more particular, the cloud, to which the second of the three was fastened, having been driven by the wind, this pipe followed it without breaking or quitting the place where it drew in the water, and passing behind the first, they had for some time the form of St. Andrew's cross. At the beginning neither of them was more than an inch in thickness, excepting just at the top, but afterwards the first of the three increased considerably. The two others scarcely remained longer than that which we saw on the north side. The second, on the south side, remained about a quarter of an hour, but the first on that side remained longer, and gave us some apprehensions. At first it was not bigger than my finger, afterwards it swelled as thick as my arm, then as my leg, and at last as the trunk of a large tree, which a man might encompass with both his arms. We distinctly perceived water through this transparent body, which ascended in a serpentine manner. Sometimes