310 



BAR CRITICAL POSITION. 



March 



take in a single sea. The bar is a continuation of the long 

 shingle spit, or bank, which forms the seaward side of the 

 harbour ; and is about nine miles long, though in some places 

 not a hundred yards broad. 



Towards noon the wind fell light, and the vessels were 

 swept by a strong tide-stream towards a ' race,' whose noise 

 might have appalled the crews of much larger and stouter 

 barks. No bottom could be struck with the deep-sea lead, and 

 no efforts of the crews at the oars had much effect in arresting 

 their progress towards apparently inevitable destruction. Even 

 at this awful time, habitual familiarity with danger, and zeal 

 for the service, shewed their effects strongly in Mr. Stokes, 

 who eagerly watched for the sun's meridian altitude, with 

 his sextant to his eye, while every now and then he caught a 

 hasty glimpse of the foaming and roaring race towards which 

 the little craft were fast approaching. At this crisis a breeze 

 sprung up which just enabled them to pass clear ; but no 

 one Avho was in those vessels can ever forget that day, neither 

 do I think they attribute their preservation to blind chance. 

 Sailors see too many of these ' chances' to think of or reflect 

 upon them lightly, and those who have had experience are not 

 wont to forget, that to direct and to preserve are among the 

 least efforts of Omnipotence — so far, at least, as our limited 

 intelligence enables us to discern. 



At 'five that afternoon the Paz and Liebre were about eigh- 

 teen miles off shore, out of soundings with their lead-lines, and 

 yet were only a mile and half from the eastern part of the 

 race ; therefore they still stood to seaward, to get as far as pos- 

 sible from a neighbourhood so dangerous at any time, but 

 especially so at night. For two hours they passed through a 

 rippling, but could strike no soundings with sixty fathoms of 

 line. 



In 1830 Mr. Harris (owner of the Paz) sailed from the River 

 Negro in a vessel of about ninety tons, with some horses on 

 board, which he had engaged to convey to a party of gauchoes 

 who were employed on the peninsula of San Jose, in killing 

 cattle for their hides. Within the Bay of San Matias, about six 



