Tmverse the Western Pacific. (ri^ 



the S.E. trade was blowing so strong that the ship could only- 

 lay her course to the southward under reduced sail, close- 

 hauled, and had now to plunge laboriously through the heavy 

 seas, which the stiff breeze was knocking up. On the 25th 

 and 26tli October it blew a regular storm from the S.E., 

 we forging along under double-reefed square-sails, till it almost 

 seemed that the end of our voyage was destined to be as 

 stormy as its commencement " away in the China seas." 

 The ship's timbers creaked and groaned, as though they would 

 break into a thousand pieces, while the whistling and moan- 

 ing of the wind, the raging and roaring of the sea, the tre- 

 mendous crash of the waves against our bulwarks, left no 

 peace night or day for the ''non-effectives," as all passengers 

 not regularly borne upon the ship's books are called on board a 

 man-of-war. As though to increase the discomfort of their 

 position, it happened that the frigate began to make water to 

 such an extent, that in what was fortunately but a very small 

 jjortion of the hold, the water rose to fifty inches within four 

 hours ! It was supposed that during the typhoon on the China 

 sea, some of the copper plates had been wrenched off, and 

 that the water was finding entrance through some leak in her 

 outer timbers, but the most rigid examination failed to dis- 

 cover its whereabouts. At all events it must have been at or 

 above the water line, as when the sea rose higher than usual, 

 or the ship lurched much, the water was sure to gain. We 

 were compelled consequently to vary from our original course 

 by the open sea-way along the west coast of New Caledonia, 



VOL. n. 2 s 



