Page:Australian Emigrant 1854.djvu/44

28 port when the tide began to tell against her, but as the breeze freshened considerably, it was considered advisable to attempt the passage without delay. The ship was soon in the ripple occasioned by the wind and tide being in contrary directions. She laboured and struggled to get on, seemingly held back by some invisible power, like a steed eager to dash forward, but restrained by the strong arm of its rider. Her sails remained full, excepting when some huge uprising mass of water lifted her, and for the moment rendered her rudder useless; still she held her own, and plunged into the big waves—not over them: it looked almost like a personal contest between two combatants nearly matched. The wind continued to freshen, and the vessel gained ground: it lulled for a moment or two, and the boiling sea bore her back upon its bosom. Whirlpools appeared, and were as quickly gone, for a great wave rolling in from the ocean, would leave the water momentarily smooth. Presently some strange commotion appeared to be taking place beneath, a great bubbling mass of water would rise, apparently capable of overwhelming the largest ship, and subside as mysteriously as it had arisen. Such is the passage into Port Philip, in certain states of the wind and tide.

After ineffectually attempting the passage for several hours, the tide having spent its chief force, the ship slowly accomplished the long anticipated end, and the expanse of water which met the view inside the heads, sufficiently accounted for the extraordinary resistance to the ship's progress; for as far as the eye could reach up the bay (it almost deserves the name of a sea), was a sheet of water, dotted here and there by sand banks, and mud islands; and the only exit for it all was the one, two miles broad, through which we have just navigated the "Big Ann."