t 
THE CRUISE OF THE ABROLHOS. 89 
teen to twenty-nine metres, a bottom composed of sand and 
shells, and no impediment to navigation. The almost tull 
moon made the night wellnigh as light as day. 
Late at night I turned in below, and, with the sound of 
waves outside and the wash of the bilge-water and the occa- 
sional floundering of the not yet dead fish inside, dreamed 
of home, while Jaco and the men ever and anon heaved the 
lead, calling out the number of metres. At last the voice of 
a sailor was heard at the hatch, “O Seu Carlos! O recife?!” 
The reef! I went hastily on deck in the moonlight. Splash 
went the lead. “Dous metros,”—only two metres of water. 
We are on the reef. I rolled myself in my great coat and 
stretched myself out on the deck listening to the splash of 
the lead, and gazing at the big cumulus clouds, lit up by the 
. Moon, and memory carried me back to long rides along the 
sea-beaches farther south, to many a bivouac under the clear 
dewy sky, when the slow march of the tardily gliding hours 
was marked by the sinking of the moon among the waving, 
glistening, giant fronds of the cocoa-palm, or w the South- 
ern Cross, that, like a great hour-hand, swung round the 
southern pole, and with the monstrous modinha of the 
steersman I fell asleep. 
“ Dez metros!” cries Jacó, “O Carlos ! we are in the chan- 
nel.” The great reef of the Parédes is deeply indented, 
according to fishermen, by two very irregular channels, 
which, entering it from the north, almost separate it into 
three parts, very much as the island of Cape Breton is cut 
up by the Bras dOr. We had crossed the outer reef and 
reached the eastern channel, which is very narrow. In this 
way, with the sounding-line in hand, we crossed the reef, 
and anchored just on the inner side to wait for the morning. 
e sun rose and Jacé wound his horn. Here we were 
just off the reef and alongside the sac for which we had 
steered. As the tide went down, the reef began to uncover 
itself, and became dry over a very large area, as far north 
and south as we could see from ihe daek of our little vessel. 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. I. 
