Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/168

158 In the coure of the night a large wave dahed over the deck of our veel, having made its way through the opening between the fore-catle and quarter-deck, where we kept our boats. When I prang out of my bed, I found the cabin filled with water, and imagined we were going to the bottom. It kept us a long time employed before we could rid the hip of the water it had taken in. Three or four uch waves would infallibly have unk us. We hould not have ran such a hazard, if we had been provided with means to lay gratings over the large opening by which the wave entered.

On the 17th of April, when we were in lat. 43° S. long. 129° E. the variation of the magnetic needle was 0.

The Eperance was apprised, that in cae of eparation, our rendezvous at Van Diemen's Cape was to be the Bay of Adventure, intead of the Baie des Huitres.

We lay to under our fore-ail during the night of the 20th, as our day's work had brought us o near the coast, that we could not carry full ail. At nine in the evening, we ounded, without triking ground, with a line of eventy-five fathoms. We brought up with the lead a great quantity of phophoric substances, from about three to even inches in circumference. As the com-