130 VOYAGE TO THE 



which in thick weather could not be approached with 

 safety. We observed strong ripples in the water 

 near them, but the w^ind did not permit us to enter 

 any for the purpose of sounding; ; late in the evening, 

 however, when w^e were several leagues from them, 

 the weather being nearly calm, we were drawn into 

 one of these ripples and continued in it several hours, 

 during which time we tried for soundings with a hun- 

 dred fathoms of line without success. Upon trial a 

 current was found to set S. E. seven furlongs per 

 hour ; this experiment, however, was made from the 

 ship by mooring a buoy, and was probably incorrect, 

 as the water was much agitated ; and had a vessel 

 seen it, or even heard it in the night-time (for it made 

 a considerable noise), she would have taken it for 

 breakers and put about. A peculiar smell was de- 

 tected in the atmosphere while we remained un- 

 manageable in this local disturbance of the water, which 

 some ascribed to sea-weed, and others to dead fish, 

 but it was never ascertained whence it arose. Some 

 seamen have an idea, though it is not very general, 

 that this peculiar odour precedes a change of weather, 

 and sometimes a storm, particularly in the Mediterra- 

 nean. On the present occasion nothing of the kind 

 occurred immediately, though about twenty-six hours 

 afterwards, when crossing the channel between For- 

 mosa and the mainland, the temperature fell sixteen 

 degrees from the average height of the preceding day, 

 and the wind blew strong from the northward. 



Before daylight on the 1 0th, while we were crossing 

 the channel to the westward of Formosa, going at the 

 rate of ten miles an hour, w^e found ourselves sur- 

 rounded by Chinese fishing boats, and narrowly es- 

 caped running over several of them, as it was very 



