438 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



Sails 



through it 

 again. 



" The same sea that washed the side of the ship rose in 

 a breaker prodigiously high the very next time it did 

 rise ; so that between us and destruction was only a 

 dismal valley, the breadth of one wave, and even now 

 no bottom could be felt with one hundred and twenty 

 fathoms." Shipwreck seemed inevitable. Land was ten 

 leagues away, and the boats could not possibly carry the 

 crew. " All the dangers we had escaped were little in com- 

 parison of being thrown upon this reef, where the ship 

 must be dashed to pieces in a moment." 



Cook made for a small opening in the reef, not wider 

 than the length of the ship. They reached it just too 

 late, "the tide of ebb rushing out like a mill-stream, 

 so that it was impossible to get in." The boats, with the 

 help of the tide, pulled them one and a half miles away ; 

 but the returning tide would certainly bear them back 

 on the reef. Cook made for another opening, a quarter 

 of a mile broad. " Narrow and dangerous as it was, 

 it seemed to be the only means of saving her as well as 

 ourselves. A light breeze soon sprang up at East-North- 

 East, with which, the help of our boats, and a flood tide, 

 we soon entered the opening, and were hurried through 

 in a short time by a rapid tide like a mill-race." Once 

 more the faulty men of the Endeavour had shown ability 

 to grasp fortune. " In this truly terrible situation," 

 says Cook, " not one man ceased to do his utmost, and 

 that with as much calmness as if no danger had been 

 near." They could not have been calmer than the men 

 of science. When the danger was at its extreme height, 

 they were taking a Lunar to obtain the Latitude. " These 

 observations," records Mr. Green," were very good. . . . 

 We were about a hundred yards from the reef, where 

 we expected the ship to strike every minute, it being 

 calm, no soundings, and the swell heaving us right 

 on." 



Only a few days had passed since Cook had felt " no 

 small joy" in his escape from the perils inside the reef. 

 " temerity." He had now by miracle escaped the far greater perils 

 outside. His Journal betrays an unusual fatigue of mind 



Cook 



