ours out of
our reckoning since sun-set the night before. Many ships, by not
heaving-to at all, or not doing so in time, the night previous to making
the reef, drift too far to the northward during the night, miss the
passage they were endeavouring to make, and are compelled to run along
the reef in search of another; for there is no getting back to the
southward against wind and current. This neglect throws many a vessel up
to the Murray Islands' passages, which are notoriously the most
dangerous, and are now generally avoided by shipping. Then there is hazy
weather occasionally in those parts, even in the finest months: during
its continuance, no vessel ought to approach the Barrier, though many
are imprudent enough to do so, and too frequently pay the penalty. In
the Barrier, there are many gaps, called "horse-shoes," which, in thick
weather, look like real entrances, the breakers at the bottom of them
not being visible from the ship. I have known many vessels lost by
taking a horse-shoe for a real entrance in hazy weather. Other vessels
get wrecked from paying too little attention to the dangers that beset
them, after getting safe through the Barrier. There are small patches of
reef here and there, in the middle of the many channels that run between
the main reefs: these pick up many vessels that might be saved, were a
careful look-out kept on board. I could give instances of losses
happening in each of these ways; but the careless have suffered so
severely from their neglect, that I would not hurt them by naming the
ships.

We had a fine run to Batavia, where we arrived in thirty-one days from
Sydney. A sail from Australia to any part of the Malayan Archipelago,
during the south-east monsoon, is, perhaps, the pleasantest voyage a
traveller could undertake: he has smooth water and a fair wind all the
way, with a constant succession of magnificent scenery among the
numerous islands of perpetual summer with which those seas are studded.

I have heard many seamen talk lightly of the dangers of Torres' Straits
and the Barrier Reef, and have known more than one of those
over-confident gentry subsequently wrecked there. For my own part, I
have a great awe of those dangers, and can vouch for some ship's crews
having the same feeling. On our approach to the Barrier, our crew, which
consisted of as rattle-pated a set as sailors usually are, were doubly
active, obeyed every order with alacrity, and so quietly, that the fall