of extraordinary strength, the weed extending twenty
feet and more below the surface of the water, and being so tough that
two of our men between them were unable to break a specimen we drew on
board, so that if we should become entangled in the kelp, we knew that
death by slow starvation, when our provisions were exhausted, would
await us.

During the day upon which we first sighted this phenomenon we attempted
every manoeuvre of navigation to keep the ship clear of the weed, but
in spite of all we could do, and the ceaseless watch Hartog and I
between us kept on deck, the dawn of the next day found the ship as
stationary as though we had run ashore.

"Nothing but a gale from the right quarter can save us, Peter," said
Hartog when we held a consultation together in the cabin, "and even a
gale will not help us unless it comes soon and before the weed
gathers."

I knew what he said was plain truth, yet I advised we should keep a
brave face before the men, as nothing would be gained by provoking a
scare.

Notwithstanding our assumed cheerfulness, however, we could see the
crew were becoming alarmed, and as each day added to the accumulation
of the weed which collected between us and the open sea, anxious looks
were turned to the horizon in the hope of detecting the long-expected
breeze.

So as to give the men occupation, and prevent their brooding, Hartog
gave directions to man the boats in order that an attempt might be made
to tow the ship through the weed, but after two days' fruitless effort
the attempt was abandoned. It was dreadful to contemplate our impotence
in the face of this danger, which hourly grew upon us. The seaweed, in
itself so harmless that it becomes the sport of children when washed
ashore upon the beaches at home, here, in its original and monstrous
growth became more terrifying than all the Leviathans of the deep.
There was something irresistible in this brown mantle which drew its
folds so silently and yet so surely around us that even Dirk Hartog's
indomitable spirit quailed at the thought of what might be before us.
"What demon led us hither, Peter?" he said to me when a week had
passed, and we still rode motionless in the grip of the seaweed. "Of
all the perils which mariners must face, whoever heard of a ship's
company being brought to their doom by floating kelp?"

I told him of the sea of which I had read, and which I believed we had
come to. He listened to me with patience, and then