After passing such an agreeable night, we could not be quiet, and laughed at our pilot about his perfect knowledge of the weather. The fellow shook his head, and said, he had been mistaken before now, and was always glad when it happened so; but still we were not arrived at Cosseir, though he hoped and believed we should get there in safety. In a very little time the vane on the mast-head began to turn, first north, then east, then south, and back again to all the points in the compass; the sky was quite dark, with thick rain to the southward of us; then followed a most violent clap of thunder, but no lightning; and back again came the wind fair at south-east. We all looked rather downcast at each other, and a general silence followed. This, however, I saw availed us nothing, we were in the scrape, and were to endeavour to get out of it the best way we could. The vessel went at a prodigious rate. The sail that was made of mat happened to be new, and, filled with a strong wind, weighed prodigiously. What made this worse, was, the sails were placed a little forward. The first thing I asked, was, if the pilot could not lower his main-sail? But that we found impossible, the yard being fixed to the mast-head. The next step was to reef it, by hauling it in part up like a curtain: this our pilot desired us not to attempt; for it would endanger our foundering. Notwithstanding which, I desired my servant to help me with the haulyards; and to hold them in his hand, only giving them a turn round the bench. This increasing the vessel’s weight above and before, as she already had too much pressure, made her give two pitches, the one after the other, so that I thought she was buried under the waves, and a considerable deal of water came in upon us. I am fully satisfied, had she not been in good order, very buoyant, and in her trim, she would have gone to the bottom, as the wind continued to blow a hurricane.
I began now to throw off my upper coat and trowsers, that I might endeavour to make shore, if the vessel should founder, whilst the servants seemed to have given themselves up, and made no preparation. The pilot kept in close by the land, to see if no bight, or inlet, offered to bring up in; but we were going with such violence, that I was satisfied we should overset if we attempted this. Every ten minutes we ran over the white coral banks, which we broke in pieces with the grating of a file, upon iron, and, what was the most terrible of all, a large wave followed higher than our stern, curling over it, and seemed to be the instrument destined by Providence to bury us in the abyss.