SAN FRANCISCO TO MANILLA. 271 



ship lay almost as still as if she had been within the harbour. The 

 sun set clear, and every thing betokened a calm and quiet night. 



At about 10 p. m. the swell began to increase, without any appa- 

 rent cause, and so rapidly as to awaken my anxiety ; but being in 

 such deep water, I thought that the vessel was sufficiently distant 

 from the bar not to be exposed to any breakers. As the flood con- 

 tinued to make, the swell increased, and by midnight we were enve- 

 loped in fog, without a breath of air, and the ship rode over the 

 rollers, that were now becoming very heavy, and caused her to pitch 

 violently. There was, however, no break to them; but as ample 

 scope of cable had been given, the ship occasionally swung broad- 

 side to, when the heavy pitching was changed to rolling, so deep as 

 to endanger our masts. At 2 a. m. a breaker was heard outside of 

 us, passing in with the roar of a surf, after which they became con- 

 stant, and really awful. The ship might now be said to be riding in 

 breakers of gigantic size ; they rushed onwards with such a tremen- 

 dous roar and violence, that as each wave was heard approaching, 

 it became a source of apprehension until it had safely passed. Such 

 was its force that when it struck the ship, the chain cable would 

 surge, the ring-stoppers part, and some few fathoms of the cable 

 escape. As the time of high water approached, the roar of these 

 immense breakers was constant. The ship was as if tempest-tost, 

 and our situation became at each moment one of greater solici- 

 tude. The actual danger of wreck was not indeed great, for in 

 the event of parting our cable, the tide would have carried us towards 

 the harbour, and into deeper water, where the rollers would have 

 ceased to break ; and there was no great danger that we would drift 

 on the bar, which was a mile or two to the northward of our position. 



I looked forward with anxiety for the time of high water, as the 

 period when we should be relieved from our unpleasant situation, not 

 only by the change in the course of the tide, but also by the cessation 

 of the breakers. 



Our situation afforded me an opportunity of measuring the velocity 

 of the waves as they passed the ship ; and though the distance was 

 short, yet the observations were numerous, and gave the velocity at 

 from fifteen to eighteen miles an hour ; their estimated height was 

 over thirty feet, their width, from eight hundred to one thousand feet. 



At half-past three, one of these immense breakers struck the ship 

 broad on the bow, and broke with its full force on board : the cable 



