Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/258

 spoken of the incessant roar of the waters, representing it as one of the most awful sights that can possibly meet  the eye of the sailor.

On heaving the lead we found only five, eight, and nine fathoms of water, where on the chart it was laid  down twenty-eight fathoms. The two quarter boats were lowered to sound for the channel, at six bells, three  o’clock; but the wind beginning to freshen and the  weather to thicken, they were recalled, and we hauled  off with the tide, which was running with great rapidity  and soon carried us back into the blue waters of the  ocean.

During the night the weather was very boisterous. The following morning it was quite foggy. We bore away for the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and at eleven o’clock the man at the mast-head cried out, "Breakers  on the lee bow!" The ship was at once brought by the wind, the studding-sails taken in, and a cast of the  lead taken, when we found ourselves in five fathoms of  water. The fog soon lifted and we saw, not half a mile off, a high point of rocks. Had we continued on our course fifteen minutes longer the ship must have been  dashed to pieces and all hands sent to Davy Jones’  locker.

This place proved to be Point Grenville, off Vancouver and Destruction Isle. This is one of the hair-breadth escapes from wreck incident to this cruise.

A canoe soon came alongside with two old Indians, who kept singing out, "Squik quak manash, squik quak  manash. Nusk quall, nusk quail. Miso Wilszon Misoly, Miso Wilszon Misoly, Bosson, Bosson." Then they