Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/424

404 broad: indeed looking back at the latter from the bay it appeared like a rivulet at the bottom of some woody ravine. Vessels sometimes get grounded on the bar for three or four days together: the sea breeze sets in over it from ten to eleven a. m. daily: this increases the depth of the water, as it throws back the current of the river; so that vessels drawing more than is usually on the bar, lie to on the inner side of it, and shift their ballast to starboard, whereby they also gain another foot of water. A fine breeze brought us by eleven o'clock to point Manawick, and at one we were off Seven Hills; the remainder of the day and all the night we made no progress, as the north-east wind blew directly in our teeth, and continued so for the whole of the next day, the 28th.

Our faces were dreadfully scorched and blistered by exposure to the hot weather, and we felt sorely tired of the voyage, although it was considered a tolerably favourable one: we had performed it in five