Chapter XII. 



PORT LEOPOLD. 



BID AY evening, July 4th. — At three 

 o'clock yesterday afternoon, in con- 

 sequence of our inability to fish, owing 

 to the wind and high sea, the captain 

 determined to put into Port Leopold to wait for 

 fine weather and to fill up with water. I was 

 delighted when I heard the orders given to get up 

 steam, and for the course to be altered to the north- 

 ward. We steered close along the eastern shore 

 of North Somerset, the land rising steep and pre- 

 cipitous, and giving one almost the idea of passing 

 along the side of a huge fortified wall, with em- 

 brasures about a third of the way from the bottom, 

 and regular buttresses along its face. It seems 

 difficult to account for the peculiar formation of 

 these buttresses, which are arranged so metho- 

 dically ; but I should suppose it to be attributable 

 to the action of the weather on the soft sandstone 



