I knew that so long as deep-sea porpoises kept with us
we had nothing to fear of the ground. When the lookout cried, "Porpoises
gone," we turned the bark's head off-shore, backed the main-tops'l, and
sent out the "pigeon" (lead). A few grains of sand and one soft,
delicate white shell were brought up out of fourteen fathoms of water.
We had but to heed these warnings and guides, and our course would be
tolerably clear, dense and all as the fog and darkness was.
The lead was kept constantly going as we sailed along in the intense
darkness, till the headland of our port was visible through the haze of
grey morning. What Garfield had smelled, I may mention, turned out to be
coal-tar, a pot of which had been capsized on deck by the leadsman, in
the night.
By daylight in the morning, April 29, we had found the inner entrance to
Ilha Grande, and sailed into the harbour for the second time with this
cargo of hay. It was still very foggy, and all day heavy gusts of wind
came down through the gulches in the mountains, laden with fog and rain.
Two days later, the weather cleared up, and our friends began to come
in.
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