300 
SOUTH SEA 
boats until we could have found shelter under the land, 
or in some creek or inlet, which in the darkness of the 
night would have been extremely difficult to find ; but 
as it was, we scudded before it with great velocity, 
with only a small portion of our sails exposed to its 
violence, our only fear being now, on account of the 
rain and darkness, that we should overshoot our mark, 
and pass the ship, and so enjoy a night's sojourn in 
the boats, exposed to the horrid war of the elements, 
which now raged with great fury. We still continued 
to steer in the direction we had last seen the ship, and 
some of us began to think that we had already passed 
her, having by this time been running before the wind 
for about twenty minutes, but shortly afterwards we had 
the satisfaction of seeing the ship right ahead of us, and 
lying to ; we speedily ran our boats round to the lee 
side of her, and I was the first to clutch her chains and 
climb on board, amid such a torrent of rain, such vivid 
lightning and loud thunder, with violent wind and roar- 
ing of the waters, that we thought the elements were 
combining together to destroy us. 
Such are the particulars of another of our escapes, in 
which the reader will probably observe, that we were 
more fortunate than wise. The storm raged with great 
violence for about two hours, when the weather became 
suddenly calm, and the next morning was as serene as 
the preceding one, when we had commenced our journey 
in the boats. 
As a ,proof of the intense heat of the sun at this place, 
one of our men foolishly rolled up the lower part of his 
