294 AUSTRALIA TO TORRES STRAITS CHAP. XII 
day out of sight of land, to our no small satisfaction. <A 
reef such as we have just passed is a thing scarcely known 
in Europe, or indeed anywhere but in these seas. It isa 
wall of coral rock, rising almost perpendicularly out of the 
unfathomable ocean, always covered at high-water, commonly 
by seven or eight feet, and generally bare at low-water. 
The large waves of the vast ocean meeting with so sudden 
a resistance make here a most terrible surf, breaking moun- 
tains high, especially when, as in our case, the general trade- 
wind blows directly upon it. 
16th. At three o'clock this morning it dropped calm, 
which did not better our situation, for we were not more 
than four or five leagues from the reef, towards which the 
swell drove us. By six o’clock we were within a cable 
length of the reef, so fast had we been driven on it, without 
our being able to find ground with 100 fathoms. The boats 
were got out, to try if they could tow the ship off, but we 
were within forty yards when a light air sprang up, and 
moved the ship off a little. The boats being now manned 
tried to tow her away, but, whenever the air dropped, they 
only succeeded in keeping the ship stationary. We now 
found what had been the real cause of our escape, namely, 
the turn of the tide. It was the flood that had hurried us 
so unaccountably fast to the reef, which we had almost 
reached just at high-water. The ebb, however, aided by the 
boats’ crews, only carried us about two miles from the reef, 
when the tide turned again, so that we were in no better 
situation. No wind would have been of any use, for we 
were so embayed by the reef that with the general trade- 
wind it would have been impossible to get out. Fortunately 
a narrow opening in the reef was observed, and a boat sent 
to examine it reporting that it was practicable—the other 
boats meanwhile struggling against the flood—the ship’s 
head was turned towards it, and we were carried through 
by a stream like a mill-race. By four o'clock we came to 
an anchor, happy once more to encounter those shoals which 
but two days before we had thought ourselves supremely 
happy to have escaped from. 
