to be frightened in broad daylight, and was determined to carry sail till the last minute.  We all stood waiting for its coming, when the first blast showed us that it was not to be trifled with.  Rain, sleet, snow, and wind enough to take our breath from us, and make the toughest turn his back to windward!  The ship lay nearly over upon her beam-ends; the spars and rigging snapped and cracked; and her top-gallant-masts bent like whip-sticks. ``Clew up the fore and main top-gallant-sails!’’ shouted the captain, and all hands sprang to the clew-lines.  The decks were standing nearly at an angle of forty-five degrees, and the ship going like a mad steed through the water, the whole forward part of her in a smother of foam.  The halyards were let go, and the yard clewed down, and the sheets started, and in a few minutes the sails smothered and kept in by clewlines and buntlines. ``Furl ’em, sir?’’ asked the mate. ``Let go the topsail halyards, fore and aft!’’ shouted the captain in answer, at the top of his voice.  Down came the topsail yards, the reef-tackles were manned and hauled out, and we climbed up to windward, and sprang into the weather rigging.  The violence of the wind, and the hail and sleet, driving nearly horizontally across the ocean, seemed actually to pin us down to the rigging.  It was hard work making head against them.  One after another we got out upon the yards.  And here we had work to do; for our new sails had hardly been bent long enough to get the stiffness out of them, and the new earings and reef-points, stiffened with the sleet, knotted like pieces of iron wire.  Having only our round jackets and straw hats on, we were soon wet through, and it was every moment growing colder.  Our hands were soon numbed, which, added to the stiffness of everything else, kept us a good while on the yard.  After we had got the sail hauled upon the yard, we had to wait a long time for the weather earing to be passed; but there was no fault to be found, for French John was at the earing, and a better sailor never laid out on a yard; so we leaned over the yard and beat our hands upon the sail to keep them from freezing.  At length the word came, ``Haul out to leeward,’’ and we seized the reef-points and hauled the band taut for the lee earing. ``Taut band—­ knot away,’’ and we got the first reef fast, and were just going to lay down, when—­ ``Two reefs—­ two reefs!’’ shouted the mate, and we had a second reef to take, in the same way.  When this was fast we went down on deck, manned the halyards to leeward, nearly up to our knees in water, set the topsail, and then laid aloft on the main topsail yard, and reefed that sail in the same manner; for, as I have before stated, we were a good deal reduced in numbers, and, to make it worse, the carpenter, only two days before, had cut his leg with an axe, so that he could not go aloft.  This weakened us so that we could not well manage more than one topsail at a time, in such weather as this, and, of course, each man’s labor was doubled.