On the 22nd May, 1798, Nelson, while in the Gulf of Genoa, was assailed by a sudden storm, which carried away all the _Vanguard’s_ topmasts, washed one man overboard, killed an unfortunate middy and a seaman on board, and wounded others. This ship, which acted her name at the Nile only two months afterwards, rolled and laboured so dreadfully, and was in such distress, that Nelson himself declared, “The meanest frigate out of France would have been an unwelcome guest!” An officer relates that in the middle of the Gulf of Lyons, Lord Collingwood’s vessel, the _Ocean_, a roomy 98-gun ship, was struck by a sea in the middle of a gale, that threw her on her beam-ends, so much so that the men on the _Royal Sovereign_ called out, “The admiral’s gone down!” She righted again, however, but was terribly disabled. Lord Collingwood said afterwards that the heavy guns were suspended almost _vertically_, and that “he thought the topsides were actually parting from the lower frame of the ship.” Admiral Smyth, in his important physical, hydrographical, and nautical work on the Mediterranean, relates that in 1812, when on the _Rodney_, a new 74-gun ship, she was so torn by the united violence of wind and wave, that the admiral had to send her to England, although sadly in need of ships. He adds, however, that noble as was her appearance on the waters, “she was one of that hastily-built batch of men-of-war sarcastically termed the _Forty Thieves_!” Many are the varieties of winds accompanied by special characteristics met in the Mediterranean, and, indeed, sudden squalls are common enough in all usually calm waters. The writer well remembers such an incident in the beautiful Bay of San Francisco, California. He had, with friends, started in the morning from the gay city of “Frisco” on a deep-sea fishing excursion. The vessel was what is technically known as a “plunger,” a strongly-built two-masted boat, with deck and cabins, used in the bay and coast trade of the North Pacific, or for fishing purposes. When the party, consisting of five ladies, four gentlemen, the master and two men, started in the morning, there was scarcely a breath of wind or a ripple on the water, and oars as large as those used on a barge were employed to propel the vessel. “The sea was bright, and the bark rode well,”