Our starting when we did, as soon as possible, three days after arrival, justified the Nelsonian maxim not to trifle with a fair wind; for we just culled the three days which were the cream, and only cream, of our stay. From our return on the 6th, to sailing on the 12th, there was but one fair twenty-four hours--the rest from blustering to furious; and we went out with the promise of a gale which did not with evening "in the west sink smilingly forsworn." The _Iroquois_ ran through Tsugaru Strait under canvas, with a barometer rather tumbling than falling, and an east wind fast freshening to heavy. We knew it must end at northwest; but it lasted till afternoon of the next day, so we got a good offing. The shift of the wind was in its accompaniments spectacular--and cyclonic. The morning of the 13th was among the wildest I have seen. Daylight came a half-hour late, with a lurid sky; the clouds, the confused, heaving water, the sails, spars, and deck of the ship herself, all as if seen in a Lorraine glass. It having become nearly calm, she lay thrashing aimlessly in the swell, unsteadied by the canvas. The barometer still fell slowly till two in the afternoon, when it stopped, and we began to look out. "First rise, after very low Indicates a stronger blow." At three it rose one one-hundredth of an inch, and almost simultaneously, looking over the weather rail, was to be seen the oncoming northwester, never long in debt to a southeaster. First a gleaming white line of foam beneath the sombre horizon, gradually spreading to right and left, and visibly widening as it drew near. Soon its deepening surface broke to view into innumerable separate wave-crests, which advanced leaping in tumultuous accord, like the bounding rush of a pack of wolves, whom you may see, and whose howling you can imagine but do not yet hear. As Kingsley has said, "It looks so dangerous, and you are so safe"--all the thrill, yet none of the apprehension. The new gale struck the _Iroquois_ in full force. Within twenty minutes it had reached its height, and so continued for near forty-eight hours, during thirty-six of which the hatches were battened down. For a time the two seas, the old and the new, fought each other to our discomfort; but the old yielded, and, as the new got its even, regular swing, the _Iroquois_ agreed with its enemy of the moment and rode easily.