we got under the lee of this island, into quite smooth
water—for I had been very sick and uncomfortable, and
had eaten scarcely anything since the preceding morning.
We were slowly nearing the shore, which the smooth dark
water told us we could safely approach, and were congratulating
ourselves on soon being at anchor, with the prospect
of hot coffee, a good supper, and a sound sleep, when
the wind completely dropped, and we had to get out the
oars to row. We were not more than two hundred yards
from the shore, when I noticed that we seemed to get no
nearer although the men were rowing hard, but drifted to
the westward; and the prau would not obey the helm, but
‘continually fell off, and gave us much trouble to bring her
up again. Soon a loud ripple of water told us we were
seized by one of those treacherous currents which so frequently
frustrate all the efforts of the voyager in these
seas; the men threw down the oars in despair, and in a
few minutes we drifted to leeward of the island fairly out
to sea again, and lost our last chance of ever reaching
Mysol! Hoisting our jib, we lay to, and in the morning
found ourselves only a few miles from the island, but with
such a steady wind blowing from its direction as to render
it impossible for us to get back to it.
We now made sail to the northward, hoping soon to get
a more southerly wind. Towards noon the sea was much
smoother, and with a S.S.E. wind we were laying in the
direction of Salwatty, which I hoped to reach, as I could
there easily get a boat to take provisions and stores to my
companion in Mysol. This wind did not, however, last
long, but died away into a calm; and a light west wind
springing up, with a dark bank of clouds, again gave us
hopes of reaching Mysol. We were soon, however, again
disappointed. The E.S.E. wind began to blow again with
violence, and continued all night in irregular gusts, and
with a short cross sea tossed us about unmercifully, and
so continually took our sails aback, that we were at length
forced to run before it with our jib only, to escape being
swamped by our heavy mainsail. After another miserable
and anxious night, we found that we had drifted westward
of the island of Poppa, and the wind being again a little
southerly, we made all sail in order to reach it. This we
did not succeed in doing, passing to the north-west, when
the wind again blew hard from the E.S.E., and our last
hope of finding a refuge till better weather was frustrated.
This was a very serious matter to me, as I could
not tell how Charles Allen might act, if, after waiting in
vain for me, he should return to Wahai, and find that I
had left there long before, and had not since been heard of.
Such an event as our missing an island forty miles long
would hardly occur to him, and he would conclude either
that our boat had foundered, or that my crew had murdered
me and run awTay with her. However, as it was physically