the water spread so rapidly
over the low lands, that our people had scarcely time to secure the
tent, with the astronomical apparatus. On comparing the time of day at
St. Petersburg and St. Francisco, by means of the difference of
longitude, it appears that the tremendous inundation at the former city
took place not only on the same day, but even began in the same hour as
that in California. Several hundred miles westward, on the Sandwich
Islands, the wind raged with similar fury at the same time, as it did
also still farther off, upon the Philippine Islands, where it was
accompanied by an earthquake. So violent was the storm in the Bay of
Manilla, (usually so safe a harbour,) that a French corvette, at anchor
there, under the command of Captain Bougainville, a son of the
celebrated navigator, was entirely dismasted, as we afterwards heard,
on the Sandwich Islands, and at Manilla itself. This hurricane,
therefore, raged at the same time over the greatest part of the northern
hemisphere; the causes which produced it may possibly have originated
beyond our atmosphere.

Finding that our anchorage would not be secure during the winter, if we
should be exposed to storms of this kind, we took advantage of the fine
weather on the following day, to sail some miles farther eastward, into
a little bay surrounded by a romantic landscape, where Vancouver
formerly lay, and which is perfectly safe at all seasons: the Spaniards
have named this bay _Herba buena_, after a sweet-smelling herb which
grows on its shores.

The arrival of Dr. Eschscholtz and the baidars from Ross was still
delayed, and I really began to fear that some misfortune had befallen
them in the tempest: my joy therefore was extreme, when at last, on the
12th of October, the baidars, twenty in number, entered the harbour
undamaged, and we received our friend again safe and well. The little
flotilla had indeed left Ross before the commencement of the hurricane,
but had fortunately escaped any injury from it, by taking refuge at a
place called _Cap de los Reges_, till its fury was expended; but the
voyagers had been obliged to bivouack on the naked rock, without shelter
from the weather, and with very scanty provisions. Dr. Eschscholtz,
however, not in the slightest degree disheartened by the difficulties he
had undergone, was quite ready to join the voyage I had meditated for
the examination of the adjacent rivers.

All our preparations were now completed; we agai