SAN FRANCISCO TO MANILLA. 255 



bar not to be exposed to any breakers. As the flood continued to 

 make, the swell increased, and by midnight we were enveloped 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 broadside to, when the heavy pitch- 

 ing 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 constant, and really awful. The ship 

 might now be said to be riding in breakers of gigantic size ; they rushed 

 onwards with such a tremendous 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 

 surged; the stoppers were carried away; and the whole spar-deck 

 swept fore and aft ; the boats and booms broke adrift, the former were 

 stove, and the latter thrown with violence to one side. 



Unfortunately, Joseph Allshouse, a marine, who was in the act of 

 ascending the ladder at the time, was struck by one of the spars, and 

 so much injured that he died a few hours afterwards. 



It was not until between seven and eight o'clock that the ship could 

 be relieved from this situation: at that time a light air from the land 

 sprung up, of which advantage was at once taken to weigh our anchor. 



