A similar phenomenon is exhibited on the south side of the Mauritius, at a point called "The Souffleur," or "The Blower." "A large mass of rock," says Lieutenant Taylor,[G] "runs out into the sea from the mainland, to which it is joined by a neck of rock not two feet broad. The constant beating of the tremendous swell, which rolls in, has undermined it in every direction, till it has exactly the appearance of a Gothic building with a number of arches. In the centre of the rock, which is about thirty-five or forty feet above the sea, the water has forced two passages vertically upwards, which are worn as smooth and cylindrical as if cut by a chisel. When a heavy sea rolls in, it of course fills in an instant the hollow caverns underneath, and finding no other egress, and being borne in with tremendous violence, it rushes up these chimneys and flies, roaring furiously, to a height of full sixty feet. The moment the wave recedes, the vacuum beneath causes the wind to rush into the two apertures with a loud humming noise, which is heard at a considerable distance. My companion and I arrived there before high water, and, having climbed across the neck of rock, we seated ourselves close to the chimneys, where I proposed making a sketch, and had just begun when in came a thundering sea, which broke right over the rock itself and drove us back much alarmed. "Our negro guide now informed us that we must make haste to recross our narrow bridge, as the sea would get up as the tide rose. We lost no time and got back dry enough; and I was obliged to make my sketches from the mainland. In about three-quarters of an hour the sight was truly magnificent. I do not exaggerate in the least when I say that the waves rolled in, long and unbroken, full twenty-five feet high, till, meeting the headland, they broke clear over it, sending the spray flying over to the mainland; while from the centre of this mass of foam, the Souffleur shot up with a noise, which we afterwards heard distinctly between two and three miles. Standing on the main cliff, more than a hundred feet above the sea, we were quite wet. All we wanted to complete the picture was a large ship going ashore." [Footnote G: Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, vol. iii. 1833.] THE SOUFFLEUR. This plate shows the sea beating against some hollow rocks on the coast of the Mauritius, and producing the remarkable phenomenon called "The Souffleur," or "The Blower," water-spouts issuing from the wave-worn cavities of the cliff to a considerable height, and with a noise distinctly audible at a distance of three miles. [Illustration: THE SOUFFLEUR ROCK, MAURITIUS.]