158 ADVENTURE IN new' ZEALAND. Chap. VI. 
hand to relieve the tired ; and Colonel Wakefield 
steered. 
Just previous to our leaving, the cutter had towed 
the long-boat, bearing one of the anchors, to some 
distance from the ship, and dropped the anchor in 
order to get a heave on it the next tide. The violence 
of the ebb, which now ran like a sluice past the ship, 
had prevented them from towing the empty long-boat 
back ; and they had found it extremely difi&cult to pull 
only the cutter back, double-banking the oars. In 
our haste we had forgotten to notice this circumstance ; 
and we were no sooner out of the eddy formed by the 
ship, than we were hurried along seawards, notwith- 
standing all our efforts. 
The heavy swell had now begun to break on the 
outer edge of the shoals, and the roar sounded louder 
and louder in our ears as we drifted nearer to the 
breakers. The day was cloudless, and the sun, nearly 
at the zenith, distressingly hot. The chronometers 
and deeds had been placed in the stern-sheets for 
safety, but not a drop of water. We worked until we 
could perspire no longer, and then the toil was ex- 
cessively painful. An ineffectual attempt to anchor in 
one of the channels had only lost us ground, the line 
having proved too short ; and we were soon within a 
quarter of a mile of the outer breakers, which seemed 
to menace certain destruction. When in the boat, 
we had been unable to distinguish the deep channel, 
as it is tortuous, and several smaller channels perplex 
the observer so near the level of the water, and the 
tide appeared to set across both channels and banks. 
The spot where the vessel struck was two or three 
miles from the sea ; and we were now so far to sea- 
ward of the ship, that we were invisible to those on 
board. 
