sible service to us, for it began to
shoal, and ultimately became too shallow to float the ship; therefore
as, simultaneously with this discovery, we caught a strong whiff of
tainted wind from our oyster-bed, some four miles to windward, we put
down our helm, tacked, and retraced our steps, going back a couple of
miles along the oyster-bed channel to the other channel which we desired
to examine.

It was by this time about noon, and the purer air of the reef
generally--although even that was not wholly innocent of a suggestion of
decaying fish--had so far restored our appetites that we decided to pipe
to dinner; accordingly, upon entering the new channel we opened out the
package that Grace had prepared for us, and fell to. The channel in
which we now found ourselves trended generally about north-east by east
for a distance of some four and a half miles, there were therefore short
stretches in it here and there where the wind came too shy to allow the
boat to lay her course, and we consequently had to beat to windward, a
long leg and a short one, in those stretches.

At length we reached a point where the channel took a due northerly
trend, when away we went with flowing sheets, but under short canvas,
sounding industriously all the way. Then, after we had traversed some
ten miles in all of this new channel, we quite suddenly and unexpectedly
found ourselves in a basin, very similar to that in which the _Mercury_
lay peacefully at anchor, but not quite so large. We coasted along the
weather side of this basin for a distance of about two miles, and then
found another channel, which we at once entered. This channel trended
north-east, but we had not sailed above four miles before it narrowed so
much that we saw it would be useless to us, and we therefore bore up and
returned to the newly-discovered basin. Continuing our progress round
this, we found another channel, branching out of its north-western
extremity, and as it had a rather promising appearance we plunged into
it. It trended away to the northward and westward for the first seven
miles, then turned abruptly toward the southward for a distance of some
five miles, when we found ourselves in another channel trending about
north-north-west and south-south-east.

This channel was even more promising than the one which we had just
emerged from, being almost double the width; but we were puzzled for the
moment as to which direction to take, whether to head to th