isengage the tackle. The boat
being thus dexterously cleared from the ship, was seen after a while
from the poop, battling with the billows,--now raised, in its progress
to the brig, like a speck on their summit, and then disappearing for
several seconds, as if engulfed "in the horrid vale" between them.[5]

The _Cambria_ having prudently lain to at some distance from the _Kent_,
lest she should be involved in her explosion, or exposed to the fire
from her guns, which, being all shotted, afterwards went off as the
flames successively reached them, the men had a considerable way to row;
and the success of this first experiment seeming to be the measure of
our future hopes, the movements of this precious boat--incalculably
precious, without doubt, to the agonized husbands and fathers
immediately connected with it--were watched with intense anxiety by all
on board.

The better to balance the boat in the raging sea through which it had to
pass, and to enable the seamen to ply their oars, the women and children
were stowed promiscuously under the seats, and consequently exposed to
the risk of being drowned by the continual dashing of the spray over
their heads, which so filled the boat during the passages that before
their arrival at the brig the poor females were sitting up to the waist
in water, and their children kept with the greatest difficulty above it.

However, in the course of twenty minutes the little cutter was seen
alongside the ark of refuge; and the first human being that happened to
be admitted, out of the vast assemblage that ultimately found shelter
there, was the infant son of Major MacGregor, a child of only a few
weeks old, who was caught from his mother's arms and lifted into the
brig by Mr. Thomson, the fourth mate of the _Kent_, the officer who had
been ordered to take charge of the ladies' boat.[6]

But the extreme difficulty and danger presented to the women and
children in getting into the _Cambria_ seemed scarcely less imminent
than that which they had previously encountered; for to prevent the boat
from swamping or being stove against the side of the brig, while its
passengers were disembarking, required no ordinary exercise of skill
and perseverance on the part of the sailors, and of self-possession and
effort on that of the females themselves. On coming alongside of the
_Cambria_, Captain Cook very judiciously called first for the children,
who were successively thrown or handed up from the b