422 LIGHTHOUSE HILL. 



awful moments that succeeded, a breathless silence 

 prevailed ; and nought was heard but the din of 

 waters that foamed in fury around, as if impatient 

 to engulf us in their giddy whirl. Still, it must be 

 confessed, that our hearts sickened within at the 

 thought that our little bark, after having braved 

 so many storms, and done so much good service to 

 the state, might be left to whiten a foreign shore 

 with her timbers. Providence, however, decreed it 

 should be otherwise ; and the next moment the 

 Beagle's head was slowly paying off from the shore. 

 But her broadside becoming exposed to the swell, 

 she was again driven in towards the point, and so 

 close, that before the well-trimmed sails gave her 

 way, as her stern went down with the swell, the 

 assurance that she must strike, pervaded every shud- 

 dering frame. To myself, the sensation was just as 

 if my feet were under the keel ; and I almost ex- 

 pected to feel the bones crushing. Still we clung to 

 hope, which can find a place even in the narrowest 

 interval of danger ; and our eyes and hearts were 

 lifted up. in supplication to Him w^ho had already so 

 miraculously reprieved us. Scarcely, however, had 

 the prayer been formed and preferred, when the 

 peril was past: — in the course of an hour we were 

 safely moored in East Cove, Kent Group. 



In this wild and confined anchorage w^e were 

 detained by constant easterly gales for a fortnight, 

 during the whole of which there was only one really 

 clear day, when I got angles to all the distant 

 points from a hill near the south-east extremeofthe 



