ANOTHER SEARCH. 239 



of wind, and the sea was so heavy as to break in 

 over her forecastle as she lay at anchor. They had 

 no boat on board but the dingy, and so many men 

 away as hardly to have enough to work the ship if 

 it had been necessary to weigh anchor. 



May 15.— We ran down to the southward, where 

 we were joined by the Prince George, and shortly 

 after Mr. Pollard came on board with the cutter. 

 He had run down along the coast as close as he 

 could without seeing any signs of the missing boats. 

 As it was possible they might have hauled off the 

 coast and missed us in some of the bad weather we 

 had experienced, and then steered for Bramble 

 Key or Erroob, the Prince George was despatched 

 to those places to look for them. The cutter was 

 re-victu ailed for six days, and sent again to search 

 the coast in the bottom of the bight off which we 

 were, while the Fly beat up to the north-east to ex- 

 amine the coast in that direction. Mr. Macgillivray 

 volunteered to go in the cutter with Mr. Pollard. 



May 16 to 19. — During these four days we had 

 the most lovely weather, but the winds were so light 

 that we only got about thirty -five miles to the wind- 

 ward of our former anchorage. The edge of the 

 bank was traced thus far, and the neighbouring sea 

 outside sounded, but the land was too distant for us 

 to do more than just trace its outline approximately. 

 At our farthest eastern point the shoals seemed to 

 have a tendency to close in with the land. Just be- 

 fore sunrise in the morning, high land was seen 



