336 FOYAGE FROM CERAM [chap. xxxv. 



impossible now for me to reacli him, the only thing to be 

 done was to make the best of my way to Waigiou, and 

 trust to our meeting some traders, who might convey to 

 him the news of my safety. 



Finding on my map a group of three small islands, 

 twenty-five miles north of Poppa, I resolved, if possible, to 

 rest there a day or two. We could lay our boat's head 

 N.E. by N.; but a heavy sea from the eastward so con- 

 tinually beat us off our course, and we made so much 

 leeway, that I found it would be as much as we could do 

 to reach them. It was a delicate point to keep our head 

 in the best direction, neither so close to the wind as to 

 stop our way, or so free as to carry us too far to leeward. 

 I continually directed the steersman myself, and by inces- 

 sant vigilance succeeded, just at sunset, in bringing our 

 boat to an anchor under the lee of the southern point of 

 one of the islands. The anchorage was, however, by no 

 means good, there being a fringing coral reef, dry at low 

 water, beyond which, on a bottom strewn with masses of 

 coral, we were obliged to anchor. We had now been inces- 

 santly tossing about for four days in our small undecked 

 boat, with constant disappointments and anxiety, and it 

 was a great comfort to have a night of quiet and com- 

 parative safety. My old pilot had never left the helm for 

 more than an hour at a time, when one of the others would 

 relieve him for a little sleep ; so I determined the next 



