1'22 FRESH WATER LAKE. 



and the desert to hail the approaching hour, in 

 the fuhiess of which all the earth shall be blessed ! 



Soon after dark we were visited by a squall from 

 the eastward, longer in duration, and heavier than 

 any we had before experienced. From our exposed 

 situation, — no land intervening for 30 miles, — it 

 raised a good deal of sea : the wind remained fresh 

 at the east during the greater part of the night. 



February 24. — The morning broke, dark, gloomy, 

 and threatening ; but, as the day advanced, it gra- 

 dually assumed its usual bright and brilliant charac- 

 ter ; and at seven a.m. we started, Mr. Helpman 

 having the whale boat, while Mr. Tarrant accom- 

 panied me in the yawl. We crossed Disaster Bay 

 in four and five fathoms, steering in the direction 

 of Valentine Island, and inside a long sandy spit, 

 partly dry at low water, and extending two-thirds 

 of the wav across. While waitins: for the tide to 

 rise, in order to cross this natural breakwater, we 

 landed, and struggled for a good mile through 

 a mixture of deep mud and sand, drifted, at the 

 coast line, into hills of from twenty-five to thirty feet 

 high, and bound together by a long coarse grass; 

 immediately beyond which we came upon a small 

 lake of fresh water, where all the luxuriant growth 

 of tropical vegetation was starting into life, and 

 presenting an almost miraculous contrast to the 

 barren sterility, that stamped an aspect of change- 

 less desolation upon the rest of this inhospitable 

 shore. Indeed, so far as our experience extended, 



