26 



KEDGINGDOWN THE RIVER. 



The ship, it must be observed, when under these 

 circumstances, and with no sail set, can make no 

 progress through the water, but must drift along 

 with it like a log ; consequently the rudder will 

 have no effect in directing her course, and she will 

 be left entirely at the mercy of the tide. The ope- 

 ration of hedging is a device to produce a relative 

 motion between the ship and the water, in order 

 to bring the directing power of the rudder into 

 action. This object is accomplished by allowing 

 the anchor to trail along, instead of being lifted 

 entirely off the ground, as in the first supposition. 

 It is known practically, that the degree of firmness 

 with which an anchor holds the ground depends, 

 within certain limits, upon its remoteness from 

 the ship. When the anchor lies on the ground 

 immediately under the ship's bows, and the cable 

 is vertical, it has little or no hold ; but when there 

 is much cable out, the anchor fixes itself in the 

 bottom, and cannot without difficulty be dragged 

 out of its place. In the operation of kedging, the 

 cable is hove, or drawn in, till nearly in an upright 

 position ; this immediately loosens the hold of the 

 anchor, which then begins to trail along the ground, 

 by the action of the tide pressing against the ship. 

 If the anchor ceases altogether to hold, the vessel 

 will, of course, move entirely along with the tide, 

 and the rudder will become useless. However, if 

 the anchor be not quite lifted off the ground, but 

 be merely allowed to drag along, it is evident that 

 the ship, thus clogged, will accompany the tide 

 reluctantly, and the stream will in part run past 

 her ; and thus a relative motion between the vessel 

 and the water being produced, a steering power 

 will be communicated to the rudder. 



In our case, the tide was running three miles 

 an hour ; and had the anchor been lifted wholly 

 off the ground, we must have been borne past the 

 shore exactly at that rate ; but by allowing it to 

 drag along the ground, a friction was produced, 

 by which the ship was retarded one mile an hour; 

 and she was therefore actually carried down the 

 stream at the rate of only two miles, while the 

 remaining one mile of tide ran past, and allowed 

 of her being steered : so that, in point of fact, 

 the ship became as much under the command of 

 the rudder as if she had been under sail, and going 

 at the rate of one mile an hour through the water. 



This power of steering enabled the pilot to 

 thread his way, stern foremost, amongst the 

 shoals, and to avoid the angles of the sand-banks ; 

 for, by turning the ship's head one way or the 

 other, the tide was made to act obliquely on the 

 opposite bow, and thus she was easily made to 

 cross over from bank to bank, in a zig-zag direc- 

 tion. It sometimes happened, that with every 

 care the pilot found himself caught by some eddy 

 of the tide, which threatened to carry him on a 

 shoal ; when this took place, a few fathoms of 

 the cable were permitted to run out, which in an 

 instant allowed the anchor to fix itself in the 

 ground, and consequently the ship became mo- 

 tionless. By now placing the rudder in the pro- 

 per position, the tide was soon made to act on one 

 bow ; the ship was sheered over, as it is called, 

 clear of the danger ; and the cable being again 

 drawn in, the anchor dragged along as before. 

 The operation of kedging, as may be conceived, 

 requires the most constant vigilance, and is full 

 of interest, though rather a slow mode of pro- 



ceeding ; for it cost us all that night, and the 

 whole of the next day and night, to retrace the 

 ground which we formerly had gone over in ten 

 hours. 



We had by means of this delay an opportunity 

 of seeing the country by day-light ; but except at 

 a few chance openings, the distant view was com- 

 pletely shut out by the dense nature of the forest 

 on both banks of the stream. 



On reaching the entrance of the river, we fell 

 in with two boats belonging to the United States' 

 ship Constellation, proceeding to Guayaquil. This 

 frigate's draft of water was so great, that the pilots 

 could not undertake to carry her over the shoals, 

 unless she were lightened by the removal of her 

 guns. As this could not be done readily, the cap- 

 tain and a party of his officers had determined to 

 go up in their boats. We were happy to afford 

 them a resting-place and refreshment, before their 

 long row, in a dreadfully hot day. 



The accidents of a similar course of service had 

 thrown the Constellation and the Conway fre- 

 quently together, during the last year ; and the 

 intercourse which naturally sprang up in conse- 

 quence had established an esteem and friendship 

 which made such a rencontre a source of general 

 satisfaction. We learned from our American 

 friends, that they also expected to visit, the coast 

 of Mexico, for which we were bound, and we 

 rejoiced at the prospect of again falling in with 

 them. Something, however, interfered to alter 

 their plans, for we never had the pleasure of 

 meeting them again. 



We finally left the river and the bay of Guay- 

 aquil on the morning of the 30th of December. 

 It was no small mortification to us not to have 

 seen Chimborazo, the highest mountain of all the 

 Andes. It was covered with clouds, in the most pro- 

 voking manner, during the whole of the eight days 

 we had been considerably within the distance at 

 which it is easily discernible in clear weather. 



From Guayaquil we stretched off to the west- 

 ward to the Galapagos, an uninhabited group of 

 volcanic islands, scattered along the equator, at 

 the distance of two hundred leagues from the 

 main-land. 



As this is a place of resort for the South Sea 

 whaling-ships, I called there to see whether any 

 assistance was required by that important branch 

 of the British shipping interests. But we fell in 

 with only two ships, at one of the most southern 

 islands of the group ; after which we proceeded 

 to an island thirty miles north of the line, where 

 I remained a few days to make some experiments 

 with an invariable pendulum of Captain Kater's 

 construction. 



I had intended to have made these experiments 

 on a spot lying exactly under the equator, but 

 when we got amongst the islands, a strong current 

 set us so far to leeward in the course of the night 

 before we were aware of its influence, that I found 

 it impossible to regain the lost ground, at least 

 without spending more time than my orders admit- 

 ted of, and I therefore made for the nearest an- 

 chorage within reach. y 



The spot chosen for the experiments lies near 

 the extremity of a point of land running into the 

 Bea, at the south end of the Earl of Abingdon 

 Island, and forms the western side of a small bay 

 about a mile across. This point is part of an 



