294 AUSTRALIA TO TORRES STRAITS CHAP, xn 



day out of sight of land, to our no small satisfaction. A 

 reef such as we have just passed is a thing scarcely known 

 in Europe, or indeed anywhere but in these seas. It is a 

 wall of coral rock, rising almost perpendicularly out of the 

 unfathomable ocean, always covered at high- water, commonly 

 by seven or eight feet, and generally bare at low-water. 

 The large waves of the vast ocean meeting with so sudden 

 a resistance make here a most terrible surf, breaking moun- 

 tains high, especially when, as in our case, the general trade- 

 wind blows directly upon it. 



16th. At three o'clock this morning it dropped calm, 

 which did not better our situation, for we were not more 

 than four or five leagues from the reef; towards which the 

 swell drove us. By six o'clock we were within a cable 

 length of the reef, so fast had we been driven on it, without 

 our being able to find ground with 100 fathoms. The boats 

 were got out, to try if they could tow the ship off, but we 

 were within forty yards when a light air sprang up, and 

 moved the ship off a little. The boats being now manned 

 tried to tow her away, but, whenever the air dropped, they 

 only succeeded in keeping the ship stationary. We now 

 found what had been the real cause of our escape, namely, 

 the turn of the tide. It was the flood that had hurried us 

 so unaccountably fast to the reef, which we had almost 

 reached just at high- water. The ebb, however, aided by the 

 boats' crews, only carried us about two miles from the reef, 

 when the tide turned again, so that we were in no better 

 situation. No wind would have been of any use, for we 

 were so embayed by the reef that with the general trade- 

 wind it would have been impossible to get out. Fortunately 

 a narrow opening in the reef was observed, and a boat sent 

 to examine it reporting that it was practicable the other 

 boats meanwhile struggling against the flood the ship's 

 head was turned towards it, and we were carried through 

 by a stream like a mill-race. By four o'clock we came to 

 an anchor, happy once more to encounter those shoals which 

 but two days before we had thought ourselves supremely 

 happy to have escaped from. 



