While we were passing by these rocks of Vele Rete there was an outcry of fire on the forecastle; this occasioned a {318} general alarm, and the whole crew instantly flocked together in the utmost confusion; so that the officers found it difficult for some time to appease the uproar: but having at last reduced the people to order, it was perceived that the fire proceeded from the furnace, where the bricks being overheated, had begun to communicate the fire to the adjacent woodwork: hence by pulling down the brickwork it was extinguished with great facility. In the evening we were surprized with a view of what we at first sight conceived to have been breakers, but on a stricter examination we discerned them to be only a great number of fires on the Island of Formosa. These we imagined were intended by the inhabitants of that island as signals to invite us to touch there, but that suited not our views, we being impatient to reach the port of Macao as soon as possible. From Formosa we steered W.N.W. and sometimes still more northerly, proposing to fall in with the coast of China to the eastward of Pedro Blanco, as the rock so called is usually esteemed an excellent direction for ships bound to Macao. We continued this course till the following night, and then frequently brought to, to try if we were in soundings: but it was the 5th of November, at nine in the morning, before we struck ground, and then we had forty-two fathom, and a bottom of grey sand mixed with shells. When we had run about twenty miles farther W.N.W. we had thirty-five fathom and the same bottom; then our soundings gradually decreased from thirty-five to twenty-five fathom; but soon after, to our great surprize, they jumped back again to thirty fathom. This was an alteration we could not very well account for, since all the charts laid down regular soundings everywhere to the northward of Pedro Blanco. We for this reason kept a careful look out, and altered our course to N.N.W., and having run thirty-five miles in that direction, our soundings again gradually diminished to twenty-two fathom, and we at last, about midnight, got sight of the main land of China, bearing N. by W. four leagues distant. We then brought the ship to, with her head to the sea, proposing to wait for the morning; and before sunrise we were surprized to find ourselves in the midst of an incredible number of fishing boats, which seemed to cover the surface of the sea as far as the eye could reach. I may well style their number incredible, since I cannot believe, upon the lowest estimate, that there {319} were so few as six thousand, most of them manned with five hands, and none of those we saw with less than three. Nor was this swarm of fishing vessels peculiar to that spot: for, as we ran on to the westward, we found them as abundant on every part of the coast. We at first doubted not but we should procure a pilot from them to carry us to Macao; but though many of them came close to the ship, and