When at length the day broke, it revealed the ship hove-to under close-reefed fore and main topsails, and fore-topmast staysail, the central object in the midst of a grey and desolate picture, the dreary character of which it would be difficult to surpass.  It was now blowing a whole gale from the South-West, the wind having backed during the night; the sky was an unbroken expanse of dark, slate-coloured cloud athwart the face of which tattered shreds of dirty grey vapour rapidly swept; the sea, of an opaque greyish-green tint, ran high and steep, crested with great curling heads of pallid froth, flecked here and there with fragments of seaweed, and our horizon was restricted to a circle of little more than a mile in diameter by the driving mist and rain.  It was, in short, a thoroughly disagreeable day, and I was by no means sorry that it was my forenoon watch below.