148 Adventures of Naufragus. [Auo. 



might have alarmed a man who was superstitious enough to believe in 

 evil omens. 



" On the morning previous to our departure, we were concerned to find that our 

 boat, the only one we had possessed, had disappeared during the night : having 

 been fastened by a rope to the stern, we concluded it must have been stolen. We 

 were the more chagrined at this, because there was no possibility of procuring 

 another at Tappanooly ; and to sail without one, was at least a hazardous under- 

 taking. After bidding farewell to Mr. Prince, who kindly loaded us with presents 

 of fruit, we set sail for Hindoostan, with a pleasant breeze in our favour. We had 

 not however proceeded far, scarcely indeed having cleared the land, before the 

 wind began to fall off ; and a strong current setting against us, we came, as we 

 supposed, to an anchor for the night, about two miles distant from the shore, which 

 was lined with a formidable nest of breakers ; and after paying out eight fathoms 

 of cable, squaring the yards, and setting the watch, we retired to rest. Scarcely 

 had the midnight hour passed, all on board being asleep, except Thomson, who 

 had just relieved one of the secunnies on the watch, when I was awoke by the 

 voice of the former bawling down the companion ' Captain Naufragus ! Captain 

 Naufragus ! we're out at sea, sir !' * Indeed ! how can that be ?' True, however, 

 it proved. Not a vestige of land did the moon gratify our gazing eyes withal, and 

 we concluded that our cable must have been cut by the rocky bottom. I deeply 

 lamented losing my anchor, so soon after my boat, and directed the lascars to haul 

 in the slack of "the cable ; they did so ; but instead of the cable's end making its 

 appearance, a check was felt, which prevented their getting any more in. The 

 serang then w ent over the bows to ascertain the cause, and discovered the anchor 

 suspended by the buoy-rope ; it had got entangled in the fore-chains, without hav- 

 ing reached the bottom at all ; consequently, while supposing ourselves to be safe 

 at anchor, we were, in fact, at the mercy of the winds ; but fortunate it was for us 

 the wind was not from the sea, as in that case we must of course been blown on 

 the rocks : as it was, 1 was delighted at recovering my anchor, and finding the 

 whole property safe, as also our lives. By the next morning, we regained our situa- 

 tion on the coast, but the wind still failed us, and continued to fail for a whole 

 week, so that we made but little way. At length a breeze sprang up, which wafted 

 us onwards, sixty or seventy miles, and died away again, leaving us once more 

 becalmed ; and I began to suspect that, so far as the elements were concerned, my 

 good fortune had deserted me. On the morning of the tenth day from our depar- 

 ture, I was again awakened by Thomson * Captain Naufragus !' 'Hulloa!' 

 ' Here is our boat; she is come back, and is just beneath our bows.' The deuce 

 she is!' and true enough, there she lay, within ten yards ahead, as if expecting and 

 waiting for us ; but of her six oars, four were missing: glad enough, however, were 

 we to see our old acquaintance, and she was soon hoisted up to her birth at the 

 stern." 



A third accident happens beyond this : a sailor fallsjoverboard, and is 

 drowned ; and certainly, if a belief in ill omens had existed in any naval 

 man on board, that which followed would have stamped it as prophetic. 

 On a sudden, while the sun is " setting with even more than its usual 

 brilliancy, and leaving its path marked with streaks of gold, 



" A bird hovered over our heads, and suddenly alighted on our taffrail : it was 

 one of Mother Gary's chickens,' which by mariners are considered as harbingers 

 of ill, and generally of a furious storm. At a warning of this kind I did not then 

 feel disposed to take alarm ; but there were other warnings not to be slighted the 

 horizon to the east presented the extraordinary appearance of a black cloud in the 

 shape of a bow, with its convex towards the sea, and which kept its singular shape 

 and position unchanged, until nightfall. For the period too of twenty minutes 

 after the setting of the sun, the clouds to the north-west continued of the colour of 

 blood : but that which most attracted our observation was, to us, a remarkable 

 phenomenon the sea immediately around us, and as far as the eye could discern 

 by the light of the moon, appeared, for about forty minutes, of a perfectly milk 

 white. We were visited by two more chickens of Mother Cary, both of wh ; ch 



