ast supply of water being so salt as to be scarcely drinkable.
This will be a serious disaster for us if we cannot remedy it at Cape
Town, for we have no tank room for more than eight days' supply, and no
place to store casks except on deck, where they would interfere with the
guns. And so I have borne up to run for Angra Pequena, where I expect to
pick up my prize-crew that I may return to Simon's Bay to see what can
be done, without further delay. I am quite knocked up with cold and
fever, but sick as I may be, I can never lie by and be quiet, the
demands of duty being inexorable and incessant.

_Thursday, August 27th._--Morning fine; made all sail at early daylight
and stood in for the land, having every promise of getting latitude at
meridian for position, and running in to an anchor early in the
afternoon. But an ominous fog-bank, that we had noticed hanging over the
land for a short time before, suddenly enveloped us at eight, and shut
us in so completely as to render it difficult to see a hundred yards in
any direction; the wind the while blowing fresh from the south; weather
cool and uncomfortable, and the rigging dripping rain. Hove to, and
awaited anxiously the disappearance of the fog; but hour after hour
passed, and still no change--six, seven bells struck, and the fog
appeared to grow more dense, and the wind to increase; wore ship, and
put her head off shore; went below, and turned in, in supreme disgust.
At 1.30 aroused by the report that there was a topsail schooner close
aboard. She ran down for us, when we backed main topsail, and sent a
boat and brought the Master on board. Being like ourselves bound for
Angra, he consented to pilot us in. Filled away, and made sail. We were
to-day, at noon, by computation, W.S.W. from Pedestal Point (Angra);
distance about ten miles. The fog continued most relentlessly until 4
P.M., when it disappeared, and we wore ship for the land, and were
probably on the point of making it just at sunset, when the fog came on
again, and enveloped everything in impenetrable darkness. Wore ship
seaward, and stood off and on during the night: the weather blustering.

_Friday, August 28th._--Morning cloudy, wind blowing half a gale. At
8.50 took a single reef in the topsail--the schooner in sight to
leeward. At 9.30 made the land, and soon came in full view of it. My
would-be pilot could not recognise it, until the schooner, having run in
ahead of us, ran down, to leeward, by which w