86 
SURVEY OF THE INTERTROPIC AL 
minute, therefore, after that time was passed by 
Au^. 19 . us most anxiously. Every now and then we were 
in the midst of the most violent ripplings and 
whirlpools, which sometimes whirled the vessel 
round and round, to the danger of our masts. 
Five o’clock at last arrived and the tide-eddies 
ceased, but the stream continued to run until a 
quarter of an hour afterwards, when at last the 
brig began to drift out slowly. To add now to 
the dilemma and the danger we were in, a 
breeze sprung up against us : had it continued 
calm, we should have been drifted back through 
the deepest part of the channel, over the same 
ground that the flood had carried us in : we, how- 
ever, made sail and beat out, and before dark 
had made considerable progress; we then lost 
sight of the land until eleven o’clock, when some 
was seen to the eastward: at half-past eleven 
we had a dead calm ; and, to increase our anx- 
iety, the tide had begun to flow, and to drift 
us towards the land, which was then ascertained 
to be the group 33, on whose shores the sea 
was distinctly heard to break. As midnight 
approached, the noise became still more and 
more plain ; but the moon at that time rose, and 
shewed that our position was very much more 
favourable than we had conjectured ; for, by 
bearings of Caffarelli Island and the body of 33 
