n the brig was attacked, and
still more so that he suffered no ill consequences, but rapidly
afterwards regained his health and strength.

Bell told us that had any English vessel been wrecked on the coast he
thought he should have heard of it, so that we were tolerably well
satisfied that the "Amphion" had not been cast away on the east shore of
Borneo.

Captain Haiselden had heard at Singapore that the Dutch sent out
numerous men-of-war to cruise round Celebes and the Spice Islands for
the purpose of putting down piracy, and as they would have heard of any
vessel cast away near the places they were accustomed to visit, he was
convinced that the "Amphion" must have been wrecked on some island shore
to the northward. He therefore resolved, instead of running through the
Straits of Macassar, to continue eastward across the sea of Celebes and
ultimately rounding the Moluccas, to sail down the coast of New Guinea.
The weather continued remarkably fine, the air was pure, though not
cool, and the wounded men, who were on deck as much as possible, rapidly
recovered.

The first place at which it was arranged we should touch was at the
northern end of the curiously shaped island of Celebes. A strong
southerly wind, which afterwards shifted to the south-east, springing
up, compelled us to keep more to the northward than we should otherwise
have done.

It was night, we were steering to the eastward but intended soon to put
about, expecting on the next tack to reach Menado, when just at daybreak
we found that we were close to an island with a lofty conical peak and
lower ground to the southward of it. The chart showed us that it was
the island of Sanguir. A current must have set us towards it, for we
supposed that we were some distance off. We at once put about, when the
wind dropped and we lay perfectly becalmed on the mirror-like deep. I
could not perceive the slightest swell, nor did even a cat's-paw play
over the surface. I threw some chips into the water, and when I looked
some hours afterwards there they were, floating like little boats
alongside. The smoke from the galley-fire curled upwards in a thin blue
wreath, growing thinner and thinner until it became invisible far over
head. Now and then a flying-fish would break through the glassy
surface, or some monster of the deep show us his snout, leaving a circle
of wavelets as he quickly descended. It was even hotter below than on
deck, and every piece of metal