_Mexican Gulf._--Soon after dinner we noticed an unusual appearance in the sky, like fog and mist. The sailors, with a terrified look, were standing in a group together on deck, while the captain took the helm. A storm on ship-board, strange as it may appear, develops more profanity than reverence among sailors; but water-spouts are something with which they never presume to trifle. Two of these were plainly visible. One passed aft the vessel, missing it about fifteen feet; the other presented a most peculiar phenomenon, which is said to be caused by the reciprocal attraction of the cloud above and the sea beneath. The water rises toward the cloud, which elongates itself in the form of a tube to meet and receive the fluid below--this ascending column resembling in form a speaking-trumpet, with its base uppermost. They were called _presters_ by the ancients, which word in the Greek denotes an igneous fluid--the more singular on account of those who applied the term having no knowledge of electricity. These terrible missiles of destruction often annihilate every thing in their pathway, although only a few drops of water reached us from these. They are fearful objects, unlike most others which come clothed in darkness, they being only veiled in thin mist, rising like a mysterious presence from the depths of the sea to join the forces in the air, thus making the combined influences doubly formidable. The ship had been tacked to port side just as the water-spouts had been discovered, and we were sailing southward away from them. They may be properly termed "sea-cyclones, carrying up drops of water which they have separated from the surface of the waves." The beauty, terror, and grandeur accompanying these visitants can never be imagined by one who has not witnessed them, much less definitely described by a terrified spectator. The sun shone brightly during the time, as though the storm-fiend was not abroad in his chariot, riding swiftly on wings of wind, ready to hurl the missiles of death at any hapless mariner who crossed its pathway. Ever shall I remember how utterly undone those poor sin-hardened, rough sailors appeared while waiting for orders that would give expression to their feelings, no words coming from those uncultured lips which could furnish any conception of their mental agitation.