Ixiv JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO INDIA. more clearly, and even to distinguish the coco-palms on the coast. Several vessels were under the shore, one brig, some sloops, and a kind of galliot of singular rig, beside some boats with large square sails. The day was very pleasant and cool, and the night which followed beautiful. Our breeze was good, and our progress would have been excellent, but for the unfortunate current. As it was, after another anxious night of unceasing sounding and exertion to Captain Manning and his officers, we were only advanced, at six in the morning of the 30th, about forty miles, or not quite to the parallel of False Cape; yet even this was considerable gain, and would have made us very happy, had not a dismal accident overclouded all such feelings. About ten o'clock, as I was writing these lines in the cuddy, a cry was heard, "Davy is overboard:" at first I thought they said "the baby," and ran to the mizen chains in a sort of confused agony, tugging at my coat-buttons and my sleeves as I went, with the intention of leaping in after her; when there, however, I found that one of the poor boys apprenticed to Captain Manning by the Marine Society, had fallen from the mizen-gaff, and that one of the midshipmen, Gower, not Davy, as at first supposed, was knocked over by him in his fall; the boy only rose for a few moments and sunk for ever, but the midshipman was picked up when almost exhausted. It was pleasing to see the deep interest and manly sorrow excited by this sad accident in all on board. For my own part, I was so much stunned by the shock of my first mistake, that I felt, and still feel a sort of sick and indistinct horror, which has prevented me from being so deeply affected as I otherwise must have been by the melancholy end of the poor lad thus suddenly called away. The coast was so low, that we could not discover any tokens of it, and were compelled to feel our way by soundings every half hour, keeping in from sixteen to twenty-nine fathom. All this part of Orixa, as I am assured by Major Sackville, who has himself surveyed the coast, is very ill laid down in most charts. It is a large delta, formed by the mouths of the Maha-Nuddee and other rivers, the northernmost of which insulates Cape Palmiras, and the remainder flow into what is called Cojam Bay, which is dry at low-water; so that the real line of coast is nearly straight from Juggernaut to Palmiras. The night was fine and starlight, and we crept along, sounding every half-hour in from seventeen to twenty-three fathoms till after midnight, when we entered suddenly into a rapid stream of smooth water, which carried us considerably to the east. I happened to go on deck during this watch, and was much pleased and interested with the sight. It was exactly like a river, about half a mile broad, smooth, dimply, and whirling, bordered on each side by a harsh, dark, rippling sea, such as we had hitherto contended with, and which obviously still ran in a contrary direction. It was, I have no doubt, from Major Sackville's sketch, the fresh water of the Maha-Nuddee, which being lighter, lxvi JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO INDIA, specifically, than the ocean, floated on its surface, and which appeared to flow into the sea at right angles to the Ganges. I sometimes thought of Robinson Crusoe's eddy,-sometimes of the wondrous passage described in Lord Erskine's Armata, but was not the less struck with the providential assistance which it afforded us. At five o'clock in the morning of October 1, we were said to be in lat. 20° 38'; and as the wind was getting light, anchored soon after. The fresh water of the Maha-Nuddee still remained flowing on the surface, and nearly in a N. E. direction, but too weak and too shallow to contend with the mighty Ganges, which ran like a mill-stream at a fathom or two underneath, and against which nothing but a very powerful gale could contend. Our hope is, therefore, in the floodtide, and in the smallness of the distance which we have yet to pass before we get into pilot water. At twelve, encouraged by a little increase of breeze, we weighed anchor again, the passengers (most of them) lending their aid, and thus successfully and speedily accomplished it. All sails that were applicable were set, and the vessel, to our great joy, answered her helm, and evidently made some little way. By degrees her motion accelerated, and by three o'clock we were going along merrily. Captain Manning burned blue lights, and hoisted a lamp at his mizen gaff, as a signal to any pilot who might be in our neighbourhood. The signal was answered by several vessels, obviously at no great JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO INDIA. lxvii distance, but the doubt remained whether any of these were pilots, or whether they were merely like ourselves, in search of one. Captain Manning, however, sent his cutter with one of the officers and ten men to that light which was most brilliant, and the bearing of which appeared to tally with the situation of a brig which he had observed. At length, about eleven o'clock, a vessel was really seen approaching, and, on being hailed, answered, "the Cecilia pilot schooner." The cutter soon afterwards came to our side with one of the branch pilots on board. Sir H. Blosset, I heard with much pain, died five weeks after his arrival in India, of an asthmatic complaint, to which he had been long subject. The pilot spoke much of the degree to which he was regretted, and of the influence which, even in that small time, he had acquired over the natives, who were delighted with the pains which he took to acquire their language. About seven in the evening of October the 3d, we were safely anchored in Saugor roads. |