OUR SECOND SEASON 103 



surprised after the first five miles, when the en- 

 gineer sang out, " Sprung a leak, sir; shall we put 

 back?" An examination revealed the fact that we 

 could stop the leak with a wood, plug ; and so to 

 disappoint some few " croakers," who had " told us 

 so," we settled to stand on. Our compass having 

 only a card disc, and not being filled with spirit to 

 steady it, proved very unsteady, our narrow width, 

 of only eight feet, making us roll very rapidly. We 

 adopted the method of endeavouring to steer mid- 

 way between the extreme points the needle swung 

 to, and then to keep one point inside our course so 

 that we should not run out to sea. Very shortly 

 this resulted in bringing us up straight before a 

 perpendicular cliff. Evidently our compass was in- 

 correct. An examination revealed that its box had 

 been screwed on to the cabin with large iron screws, 

 the proper binnacle having been broken on the voy- 

 age out, and being still at the optician's in St. 

 Johns. These we soon extracted, and making a 

 fresh start to the nor'ard sighted Bacalhao Island, 

 about forty miles from St. Johns, at mid-day. 



Not having sighted any more land by 5 p.m., we 

 began to think it was time to turn inshore, and after 

 some time found ourselves suddenly amidst numbers 

 of ragged rocks and small islands. Our chart book 

 described on the north side of Trinity Bay some 

 " Ragged Islands"; and we guessed we had struck 

 among these, so once more we stood out into the 

 fog. Shortly a weird noise attracted our attention. 



