20 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. 
CHAP. II. 
should have appeared, presented an unbroken line of sea and 
sky. These circumstances forced upon us the conviction that, 
although at one time it was said we were only fifteen miles 
from the anchorage, and at another that land was actually in 
sight, both captain and mate were probably doing little more 
than guessing at our position. 
On the morning of the 17th we stood towards the land 
with a fair wind, but, on approaching the coast about noon, 
near a small island called Plumb Island, we found ourselves 
about six or eight miles to the north of the entrance to the port, 
with the wind and sea driving us still further away. We stood 
out to sea again for a couple of hours, and then returned ; but 
finding ourselves, on nearing the land, still further from our 
port, with the wind increasing against us, our vessel was once 
more turned towards the open sea. As we sailed as near to the 
wind as possible, and the sea was very rough, the motion of our 
light ship was exceedingly violent, and the effect of this upon 
my own feelings was heightened by the wretched accommoda¬ 
tion on board, and by my remembrance of having, in one of my 
former voyages, been kept twenty-one days out of harbour in 
consequence of having, in a heavy gale of wind, made the land 
on the coast of New Holland four miles to leeward of the port. 
The following night, so far as regarded external circum¬ 
stances, was miserable enough. The howling of the wind, 
the dashing of the spray over our ship and into our cabin, 
the rattling of seats and boxes about the floor, the banging of 
cupboard doors without fastenings, the flickering of a dim 
dirty lamp swinging to and fro, and the frequent inspection of 
the chart by the captain, made the hours of darkness pass very 
heavily. But it was not in relation to my own personal experi¬ 
ence alone that these circumstances imparted their own dismal 
character to the tenour of my thoughts, for I found myself 
reflecting on the cheerless manner in which the last hours of 
one of the devoted missionaries to Madagascar, Mr. Jeffreys, 
