Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/112

 Instead of one island, as laid down on the chart, there are nine separate islands, ranging from one to ten miles  in circumference. We made a running survey of them. Next day we made Hoorn Island, discovered in 1616 by Le Maire. The highest part of Wallis Island is two thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea. Leaving Hoorn Island, we made all sail for the Southern Passage, passing within fifty miles of the Fiji group. On the 15th we were in the Eastern Hemisphere. Since leaving the United States we had gained a day, by our  reckoning, which is always the case in doubling Cape  Horn, going westward. When coming round the Cape of Good Hope, eastward, sailors always lose a day.

On the 18th we made Matthew’s Rock. It is about a mile in circumference, and over a thousand feet high. On the 24th we had a very serious storm of thunder and lightning. Our conductors, from the royal-mast-truck down to the night-heads, yard-arms, and mast-heads,  were all illuminated with corpo santos. All hands felt the electric shocks more or less. The wind blew furiously all night. It was more sublime than anything I ever experienced in the Gulf Stream. On the 26th we made Ball’s Pyramid, which is a large, barren rock  uprisen from the sea. At sunset we made Port Jackson Light, and lay to off the light-house for some time waiting for a pilot. None answering our signal, our commodore acted as pilot and brought the squadron up to the city. About eleven o’clock we quietly dropped anchor in the midst of the shipping, without any of the pilots or  the authorities knowing anything about our arrival. The good people of Sydney were much surprised in the