AT SEA. 101 
September 4. — For these three last days we had been at the 
mercy of the currents, which run strongly to the S. W. nearly fifty 
miles a day ; we have therefore been losing ground. A westerly 
wind sprung up, and we were in hopes of a change in the current, 
if once we could get out of the Straits. 
September 5.— -We now got a current to the N. E. and with light 
airs got on tolerably well, though not as we had a right to expect. 
September 6. — A good S. W. monsoon, and N.E. current. 
September 11. — This day the current continued eastward, run- 
ning about a knot an hour, with a fine monsoon. On the lOth, for 
the first time, we had rain. 
September 13. — It was so fresh a monsoon that Captain Vashon 
did not think it safe to venture into Surat roads, which are totallv 
unprotected; we therefore directed our course for Bombay, By 
three o'clock on the l^th Malabar Point was in sight, but we were 
not close in with it until this evening, when an officer came on 
board us from a Company's cruizer, anchored at the mouth of 
the harbour, and immediately took us in. It was dusk, but the 
scenery was still sufficiently visible to be admired. The islands that 
separate it into several parts are covered with wood to the top; 
beyond them the main land rises into a chain of mountains of the 
wildest and most picturesque forms imaginable, to which the Island 
of Bombay, covered with cocoa-nut trees, forms a contrast by its flat 
figure. It was dark when we came to an anchor: no King's ship 
was there. I immediately sent a note on shore to Mr. Salt, to re- 
quest that he would notify my arrival to Mr. Duncan, and would 
come on board in the morning. 
