PORTER’S JOURNAL. 
157 
English whalers were somewhere to the north, where they had 
been unavoidably swept by the current; but this I could hardly 
credit, when we had found such difficulty in getting into the bay 
from the southward; but he assured me, that, notwithstanding 
the southerly current we had to contend with to the south of the 
bay, I should find it to the north running equally strong norther¬ 
ly ; and, strange as it may appear, I found it absolutely the case, 
for in standing a little more out of the bay, and to the north of 
North Head, or Cape Berkley, we experienced a current setting 
northerly, which carried us with great rapidity. As we approach¬ 
ed Point Albemarle (which is the northernmost extremity of the 
island of that name, and off which lies a reef of rocks, extending 
about two miles), the weather became hazy ; and while search¬ 
ing around the horizon with my perspective, I was at length 
cheered with the sight of what I believed to be a sail: numbers of 
others on board were under the same illusion; all hands were 
called to make sail; and in a few minutes another was discovered. 
We now began to believe that fortune had become tired of try¬ 
ing our patience, and began already to make some estimation of 
their probable value, and form some plan of disposing of them ; 
but to our mortification the illusion soon vanished, and it appear¬ 
ed we had been cheated by two sand banks, whose appearance 
had been so strangely altered by the intervention of the fog, as to 
assume precisely the appearance of ships under their top-gallant 
sails. The spirits of the crew had been highly excited by the 
prospect of making prizes, and the disappointment had occasion¬ 
ed no trifling degree of dejection and despondency among them ; 
but they did not murmur; they were sensible that, if we were 
not successful, we had not ourselves to accuse, as we had not 
avoided the enemy by remaining in port; nor had we been ne¬ 
glectful in our search for him. There were few on board the ship 
who did not now despair of making any captures about the Gal- 
lapagos Islands ; and I believe tha^ many began to think that the 
information we had received respecting the practice of British 
vessels frequenting those islands, as well as the flattering expecta¬ 
tions which this information had given rise to, had been altogether 
deception; but I could not so lightly lay down my opinions, which 
