the port tack--which just enabled
her to point fair for the mouth of the channel--and at once proceeded to
take soundings. But we had not been under way five minutes before we
found that, under whole canvas, the boat travelled much too fast to
enable us to sound with the frequency and accuracy that I considered
necessary; we were consequently obliged to take in the foresail
altogether, and sail the boat under the single-reefed mainsail and jib,
at least during the outward journey.

Within ten minutes of leaving the ship we glided into the channel which
it was our intention to explore, and found ourselves slipping along a
waterway ranging from two hundred to a thousand feet in width, with an
average depth of about five fathoms. The sides of the channel were very
rough and irregular, its direction was also exceedingly erratic, varying
from east-south-east to south by west. This irregularity of direction
was the worst feature of the channel; for, with the prevailing direction
of the wind at about due east, there were stretches of the channel
looking so close into the wind's eye that the ship could never be sailed
through them. True, some of these stretches were so short that Gurney
believed the _Mercury_ could be carried through them by making a half-
board; but this would be a somewhat hazardous experiment, unless the
wind chanced to veer a point or two in our favour, while, even then,
there were other stretches that could only be traversed by kedging.
But, apart from this disadvantage, there was nothing to find fault with,
the channel being everywhere wide enough to permit the passage of the
ship, and the depth in it never less than twenty feet, with a fine sandy
bottom.

We traversed this channel for a distance of about nine miles, during
which the general trend of it might be said to be south-east, and then
we arrived at a point where it not only widened out, but also abruptly
took a south-south-west direction, to our great delight. For if the
ship could by any means be coaxed as far as this, she could then proceed
with a free wind. But, alas for our hopes, we had not traversed more
than another mile and a half before we found ourselves in a cul-de-sac,
the channel coming to an abrupt end.

This was a very severe disappointment to us, for after travelling so
far, and meeting with so few difficulties, we were already beginning to
congratulate ourselves upon having found a way of escape at the first
attempt. H