Cuar. XIL] NEARLY UPSET. 227 
fear, no fear,” he replied in his broken Chusan 
English, “my can manage he.” “But I think there 
is fear, Fokei,” I replied; andthe words were scarcely 
said, when a tremendous gust came down upon us, 
and at the same moment a heavy sea struck the 
side of our boat, and laid her fairly on her beam- 
ends. In an instant the boat filled in all her 
divisions from bow to stern. ‘ Lower the sail, lower 
the sail, quick, quick,” cried the helmsman, “ or we 
shall all go to the bottom.” Several of the crew flew 
to the sail, which fortunately came down readily, 
and our little craft righted once more, but rolled and 
plunged very heavily in consequence of the great 
quantity of water in her hold, and seemed as if she 
would go down at every plunge, and leave us ex- 
posed to the fury of the waves. We again got 
a few feet of sail hoisted, and kept her away 
before the wind. It was now dark, not a star was 
to be seen in the heavens, the mountains, although 
not distinctly visible, yet loomed through the gloom, 
and the only objects clearly distinguished were some 
lights flickering on the distant shore. The crew 
now surrounded the helmsman, and besought him 
to try and get back to Chinhae, but I was sailor 
enough to know that if we attempted to put the 
helm down and bring the boat round, in all proba- 
bility we should-ship another sea, and had we done 
so we must have gone down. I immediately went 
and stood by the helmsman, and kept the crew from 
interfering, telling him to keep on our course and 
try to get under the lee of some island as soon as 
Q2 
