g a neuralgia which I had picked up alongshore, and had only
that moment got a glance of just the stern of a large, unmanageable
steamship passing the range of my window as she forged in by the
point, when the bell-boy burst into my room shouting that the _Spray_
had "gone bung." I tumbled out quickly, to learn that "bung" meant
that a large steamship had run into her, and that it was the one of
which I saw the stern, the other end of her having hit the _Spray_. It
turned out, however, that no damage was done beyond the loss of an
anchor and chain, which from the shock of the collision had parted at
the hawse. I had nothing at all to complain of, though, in the end,
for the captain, after he clubbed his ship, took the _Spray_ in tow up
the harbor, clear of all dangers, and sent her back again, in charge
of an officer and three men, to her anchorage in the bay, with a
polite note saying he would repair any damages done. But what yawing
about she made of it when she came with a stranger at the helm! Her
old friend the pilot of the _Pinta_ would not have been guilty of such
lubberly work. But to my great delight they got her into a berth, and
the neuralgia left me then, or was forgotten. The captain of the
steamer, like a true seaman, kept his word, and his agent, Mr.
Collishaw handed me on the very next day the price of the lost anchor
and chain, with something over for anxiety of mind. I remember that he
offered me twelve pounds at once; but my lucky number being thirteen,
we made the amount thirteen pounds, which squared all accounts.

I sailed again, May 9, before a strong southwest wind, which sent the
_Spray_ gallantly on as far as Port Stevens, where it fell calm and
then came up ahead; but the weather was fine, and so remained for many
days, which was a great change from the state of the weather
experienced here some months before.

Having a full set of admiralty sheet-charts of the coast and Barrier
Reef, I felt easy in mind. Captain Fisher, R.N., who had steamed
through the Barrier passages in H. M. S. _Orlando_, advised me from
the first to take this route, and I did not regret coming back to it
now.

The wind, for a few days after passing Port Stevens, Seal Rocks, and
Cape Hawk, was light and dead ahead; but these points are photographed
on my memory from the trial of beating round them some months before
when bound the other way. But now, with a good stock of books on
board, I fell to reading day and night,