1827. 



322 VOYAGE TO THE 



CHAP. Buccaneers, and by other early navigators in these 



^ ' , seas. In consequence of a current setting out of the 



Dec. Gulf of California we were more to leeward than we 

 were aware, and, with a view of saving time, passed 

 through the channel between the two northernmost 

 islands. In doing this we were becalmed several 

 hours, and fully verified the old proverb, that the 

 longest way round is often the shortest way home. 



This channel appears to be quite safe ; and in the 

 narrowest part has from sixteen to twenty-four fa- 

 thoms water ; but the ground in other places is very 

 steep, and at two miles distance from the shore to the 

 westward there is no bottom at a hundred fathoms. 

 "When the wind is from the northward it is calm in 

 this channel, and a current sometimes sets to the south- 

 ward, which renders it advisable, on leaving the chan- 

 nel, to take advantage of the eddy winds which inter- 

 vene between the calm and the true breeze to keep to 

 the northward, to avoid being set down upon St. 

 George's Island. We found these islands twenty 

 miles further from San Bias than they were placed on 

 the charts. 



The next morning the mountains on the mainland 

 were seen towering above the white vapour which 

 hangs over every habitable part of the land near San 

 Bias. The highest of these, San Juan, 6,230 feet 

 above the sea, by trigonometrical measurement, is the 

 best guide to the road of San Bias, as it may be seen 

 at a great distance, and is seldom obscured by fogs, 1 



while the low lands are almost always so. In my 

 chart of this part of Mexico I have given its exact po- 

 sition. When the Piedra de Mer can be seen, it is an j 

 equally certain guide. This is a rock about ten miles \ 



