t.

By the time the sun was up, next morning, the vessel was under
weigh and, with light breezes, sailed round Singapore, and then
headed northwest. The winds, as before, were light and, as the
northeast monsoon was still blowing, the rate of progress was slow.

"I wish we could have got into the Hooghly," Fairclough said, as he
walked impatiently up and down the quarterdeck, "before the monsoon
broke; but I don't see much chance of it. It generally changes
about the middle of April, and we are well on in the first week,
now. At the rate at which we are sailing, we shall take at least
three weeks before we get there. You see, we are only just clear of
the northern point of Sumatra; and it is already a month since we
got up anchor."

"But we shall have the wind almost behind us, Fairclough."

"Yes, when it has settled down. It is the change that I do not
like. Of course, sometimes we have only a few days of moderately
rough weather; but occasionally there is a hurricane at the break
up, and a hurricane in the bay of Bengal is no joke. I shall not
mind, much, if we get fairly past the Andamans; for from there to
the mouth of the Hooghly it is open water, and I should be under no
uneasiness as to the brig battling her way through it; but to be
caught in a hurricane, with these patches of islands and rocks in
the neighbourhood would, to say the least, be awkward."

"Are there any ports among the islands? I recollect hearing an
officer say that there was a settlement made there, some years
ago."

"That was so. In 1791 an establishment was started in the southern
part of the island and, two years later, it was moved to a harbour
on the northwest side of the bay. It was called Port Cornwallis;
but was abandoned in 1796, being found terribly unhealthy. It was a
pity, for it afforded good shelter when the northeast monsoon was
blowing, and partially so from the southwest monsoon. No doubt it
could have been made more healthy, if the country round had been
well cleared; but it was not found to be of sufficient utility to
warrant a large outlay, and the natives are so bitterly unfriendly
that it would require a garrison of two or three hundred men to
overawe them. We should have been always losing life--not from open
attacks, perhaps, but from their habit of crawling up, and shooting
men down with their arrows."

A week later, they were some seventy or eighty miles to the west of
the Andaman group. Directly the brig weat