Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the north-west. Thence we might await a favourable wind to reach Waigamma, on the north
side of the island, and visit Allen by means of a small boat.
About nine o'clock at night, greatly to my satisfaction, 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 near-
er 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 frus-
trated. 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 away with her. However, as it was physically im-
