Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 3.djvu/9

 her. Such was the fate of the unfortunate ——, a British sloop of war; which, after landing the captain and six men, was caught in the rollers, driven on shore, and every creature on board perished, only the captain and his boat's crew escaping. This unfortunate little vessel was lost, not from want of skill or seamanship in the captain or crew, for a finer set of men never swam salt water; but from their ignorance of this peculiarity of the island, unknown in any other that I ever heard of, at least to such an alarming extent. Driven close in to the land before she could find soundings, at last she let go three anchors; but nothing could withstand the force of the "Rollers," which drove her in upon the beach, when she broke in two as soon as she landed, and all hands perished in sight of the affected captain and his boat's crew, who buried the bodies of their unfortunate shipmates as soon as the sea had delivered them up.

There is another remarkable peculiarity in this island: its shores, to a very considerable