Hoisting Our Jib, We Lay To, And In The Morning Found Ourselves Only A Few Miles From The Island, But Wit, Such A Steady Wind Blowing From Its Direction As To Render It Impossible For Us To Get Back To It.

We now made sail to the northward, hoping soon to get a more southerly wind.

Towards noon the sea was much smoother, and with a S.S.E. wind we were laying in the direction of Salwatty, which I hoped to reach, as I could there easily get a boat to take provisions and stores to my companion in Mysol. This wind did not, however, last long, but died away into a calm; and a light west wind springing up, with a dark bank of clouds, again gave us hopes of reaching Mysol. We were soon, however, again disappointed. The E.S.E. wind began to blow again with violence, and continued all night in irregular gusts, and with a short cross sea tossed us about unmercifully, and so continually took our sails aback, that we were at length forced to run before it with our jib only, to escape being swamped by our heavy mainsail. After another miserable and anxious night, we found that we had drifted westward of the island of Poppa, and the wind being again a little southerly, we made all sail in order to reach it. This we did not succeed in doing, passing to the north-west, when the wind again blew hard from the E.S.E., and our last hope of finding a refuge till better weather was frustrated.

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