Again, nearer the coast of Australia, when, however, I was not aware that the gale was extraordinary, a French mail-steamer from New Caledonia for Sydney, blown considerably out of her course, on her arrival reported it an awful storm, and to inquiring friends said: "Oh, my! we don't know what has become of the little sloop _Spray_.

We saw her in the thick of the storm." The _Spray_ was all right, lying to like a duck.

She was under a goose's wing mainsail, and had had a dry deck while the passengers on the steamer, I heard later, were up to their knees in water in the saloon.

When their ship arrived at Sydney they gave the captain a purse of gold for his skill and seamanship in bringing them safe into port.

The captain of the _Spray_ got nothing of this sort.
In this gale I made the land about Seal Rocks, where the steamship _Catherton_, with many lives, was lost a short time before.