626 Voyage of the Novara. 



and steer for the coral sea, thickly studded with reefs, which 

 lies between New Caledonia and '^ Sandy Cape " on the 

 shores of Australia, as by adopting- this dangerous route 

 we should at least have smoother water and more favour- 

 able winds. Meanwhile, every possible precaution was 

 taken in handling the ship, so as not to increase the leak, 

 and a sail was kept ready to be fothered from without over 

 the leaky part in case of necessity. 



On 28th October we had expected to be in sight of the 

 great horse-shoe-shaped Bampton Reef. But there was no 

 surf discernible from the mast-head, only the change to 

 smooth water, which we at once felt, proving that the reef 

 really existed, and that we were to leeward of it. Its position 

 is so variously laid down on the charts, that while by one 

 chart we must have been upon the very reef itself, we were, 

 according to a second, four miles, and, according to a third, 

 fourteen miles to the eastward of it ! The last-mentioned 

 seemed to be the most correct, since at four miles the surf 

 must have been visible, whereas it would be impossible to see 

 it at fourteen miles. 



By 30th October we had passed the latitude of Sandy Cape, 

 and could now steer direct for Sydney, the capital of the 

 colony of New South Wales. The same day we also crossed 

 the tropic of Capricorn. The temperature, which had been 

 falling regularly ever since we left the Solomon Islands, in 28*' 

 S., was as low as 64:^.4 Fahr., so that we found it advisable to 

 resume our woollen clothing. 



