NAUTICAL REMARKS. 439 



of Mazatlan, and within view of the island of Creston, which 

 forms the port of Mazatlan. A current sets to the southward 

 along this coast, at the rate of eighteen or twenty miles a day. 



Having approached the coast about the latitude of 23o 1 1' N., 

 Creston and some other steep rocky islands will be seen. Cres- 

 ton is the highest of these, and may be further known by two 

 small islands to the northward of it, having a white chalky 

 appearance. Steer for Creston, and pass between it and a 

 small rock to the southward, and when inside the bluff, luff 

 up, and anchor immediately in about seven and a half fathoms, 

 the small rock about S., 17o E., and the bluff W. by S. Both 

 this bluff and the I'ock may be passed within a quarter of a 

 cable's length ; the rock has from twelve to fifteen fathoms 

 within thirty yards of it in every direction. It is, however, 

 advisable to keep at a little distance from the bluff, to escape 

 the eddy winds. After having passed it be careful not to 

 shoot much to the northward of the before-mentioned bearing 

 (W. by S.), as the water shoals suddenly, or to reach so far to 

 the eastward as to open the west tangent of the peninsula with 

 the eastern point of a low rocky island S. W. of it, as that will 

 be near a dangerous rock, nearly in the centre of the anchorage, 

 with only eleven feet water upon it at low spring-tides, and 

 with deep water all round it. I moored a buoy upon it ; but 

 should this be washed away, its situation may be known by the 

 eastern extreme of the before-mentioned low rocky island, be- 

 tween which and Battery Peak there is a channel for small 

 vessels, being in one with a wedge-shaped protuberance on the 

 western hillock of the northern island (about three miles north 

 of Creston), and the N.W. extremity of the high rocky island 

 to the eastward of the anchorage being a little open with a 

 rock off the mouth of the river m the N. E. The south tangent 

 of this island will also be open a little {4o), with a dark tabled 

 hill on the second range of mountains in the east. These 

 directions will, I think, be quite intelligible on the spot. 



The winds at Mazatlan generally blow fresh from the N.W. 

 in the evening ; the sea-breeze springs up about ten in the 

 forenoon, and lasts until two o'clock in tlie morning. 



VOL. II. 2 G 



