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been last seen, so that it would be carried to seaward in the first instance; and no more than two out of the eight people being at all expert in swimming, it was much to be feared that most of them would be lost.

At daybreak I got the ship under way, and steered across Thorny Passage, over to the main land, in the direction where the cutter had been seen; keeping an officer at the mast head, with a glass, to look out for her. There were many strong ripplings, and some uncommonly smooth places where a boat, which was sent to sound, had 12 fathoms. We passed to the northward of all these; and seeing a small cove with a sandy beach, steered in and anchored in 10 fathoms, sandy bottom; the main land extending from north-half-west, round by the west and south to east-south-east, and the open space being partly sheltered by the northern islands of the passage.

A boat was despatched in search of the lost cutter, and presently returned towing in the wreck, bottom upward; it was stove