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Chap. III.]
EREBUS BANK.
59
1840
weather bow, but the wind had by that time freshened considerably, and the sea running high, we May 7.were unable to maintain our ground; so that, although we carried a heavy press of sail throughout the day and night, we found that we were drifted away twenty miles to leeward of the Cape when day broke the next morning.
We beat back in the course of the day, and at May 8.11 p.m. hove to, within two miles of our port, awaiting daylight to enter it: again we were disappointed. It was beautiful weather at midnight, with very little wind, and a perfectly smooth sea; so suddenly, however, do gales come on in these stormy regions, that in less than three hours it blew so hard as to reduce us to close-reefed topsails, and a heavy sea arising, we were driven away from the land. The storm, which increased in fury, continued to blow violently the next day, and until nine the following morning, when it began to moderate, and we again made sail as the wind gradually abated. The remainder of this, and the whole of May 9, 10.the next day, were occupied in regaining the land, and in obtaining a connected series of soundings on a bank of black sand and rock, which we found to extend above a hundred miles from the Cape. The discovery of this great bank, so likely to be of important advantage to the numerous vessels that occasionally visit the dangerous shores of this island, by warning them of their approach to the land, could not fail to remove every feeling of regret at the delay and fatigue to which we had
