A light breeze having fortunately sprung up, this, in conjunction with the aid of the boats, and the very tide of flood that would otherwise have been their destruction, enabled them to enter the opening, through which they were hurried with amazing rapidity.

Such was the force of the torrent by which they were carried along, that they were kept from driving against either side of the channel, which in breadth was not more than a quarter of a mile.

While they were shooting this gulf, their soundings were remarkably irregular, varying from thirty to seven fathom, and the ground at bottom was foul.
As soon as our navigators had gotten within the reef, they came to an anchor; and their joy was exceedingly great, at having regained a situation, which, three days before, they had quitted with the utmost pleasure and transport.

Rocks and shoals, which are always dangerous to the mariner, even when they are previously known and marked, are peculiarly dangerous in seas which have never been navigated before; and in this part of the globe they are more perilous than in any other.

Here they consist of reefs of coral rock, which rise like a wall almost perpendicularly out of the deep, and are always overflowed at high water.