85, and the lowest at
night 83. The water was very smooth, but as night approached it thundered
and lightened heavily and vividly, and most of us noticed and suffered
from a particularly oppressive and overpowering state of the atmosphere,
which the heat indicated by the thermometer was by no means sufficiently
intense to account for.

January 14.

During the last twenty-four hours we had made but 51 miles progress in
the direction of Roebuck Bay; our noon observations placed us in latitude
18 degrees 25 minutes South, longitude 120 degrees 13 minutes East, being
about 80 miles from the nearest land. We obtained soundings at 72
fathoms, yellow sand and broken shells. During the afternoon, it being
nearly a calm, we found ourselves surrounded by quantities of fish, about
the size of the mackerel, and apparently in pursuit of a number of small
and almost transparent members of the finny tribe, not larger than the
minnow.

We sounded at sunset, and found bottom at 52 fathoms, which shoaled by
half-past ten to 39. The circumstance, however, occasioned no surprise,
as we had run South-South-East 25 miles, in a direct line for that low
portion of the coast from which the flat we were running over extends.

The first part of the night we had the wind at North-North-East, the
breeze steady, and the water as smooth as glass; but as the watch wore
on, quick flashes of forked lightning, and the suspicious appearance of
gathering clouds in the South-East, gave warning of the unwelcome
approach of a heavy squall.

HEAVY SQUALL.

At eleven we lay becalmed for ten minutes between two contending winds;
that from the South, however, presently prevailed, and shifting to the
South-East, blew hard: meantime, a dark mass of clouds in the
East-South-East appeared suddenly to assume the form of a deep-caverned
archway, and moved rapidly towards us; in a few minutes, the ship was
heeling majestically to the passing gust, the lightning flashed vividly
and rapidly around us, alternately concealing and revealing the troubled
surface of the foam-covered sea, while the thunder rolled heavily over
our heads.

The squall was heavy while it lasted, commencing at East-South-East and
ending at East-North-East. It was accompanied by heavy rain. Towards the
end of the middle watch, the weather began to assume a more settled
appearance, and we had a moderate breeze from the north; but between five
and six o'clock A.M., it shifted suddenly by the