whilst Flinders spread the wet powder out in the sun. This met with no opposition, for the natives did not know what the powder was; but when they proceeded to clean the muskets, it excited so much alarm that it was necessary to desist. On inquiring of the two friendly natives for water, they pointed upwards to the lagoon, but, after many evasions, their little barrel was filled at a hole not many yards distant.
After making careful observations of the coast, in the course of which they discovered an important stratum of coal running through the cliffs, they began to turn homeward. On the 29th, by rowing hard, they got four leagues nearer home, and at night dropped their stone under another range of cliffs. The wind, which had been unsettled and driving electric clouds in all directions, burst out that night in a gale from the south, and obliged them to get up the anchor immediately, and run before it. In a few minutes the waves began to break, and the extreme danger to which this exposed the little barque was increased by the darkness of the night, and the uncertainty of finding any place of shelter. The shade of the cliffs over their heads, and the noise of the surfs breaking at their feet, were the directions by which their course was steered parallel to the coast.
Bass kept the sheet of the sail in his hand, drawing in a few inches occasionally, when he saw a particularly heavy sea following. His friend was steering with an oar, and it required the utmost exertion and care to prevent "broaching to" they knew that a single wrong movement, or a moment's inattention, would have sent them to the bottom. Meanwhile, the task of the boy
