According to the same chart, one of authority and made from accurate surveys, the latter portion of the reef is distant from the town of Tripoli about two and a half miles, and the former something like a mile and a half more. There is an interval of quite half a mile in length between these two main divisions of the reef, through which it is possible to carry six and seven fathoms, provided three or four detached fragments of reef, of no great extent, be avoided. The channels among these rocks afforded great facilities to the Turks in getting in and out of their port during the blockade, since a vessel of moderate draught, that knew the land-marks, might run through them with great confidence by daylight. It is probable the chase, in this instance, led in among these reefs as much to induce the frigate to follow as to cover her own escape, either of which motives showed a knowledge of the coast, and a familiarity with his duties in her commander. In coming down from the eastward, and bringing with her a plenty of water, the Philadelphia must have passed two or three hundred yards to the southward of the northeastern extremity of the most easterly of the two great divisions of the reef in question. This position agrees with the soundings found at the time, and with those laid down in the chart. She had the chase some distance inshore of her; so much so, indeed, as to have been firing into her from the two forward divisions of the larboard guns, in the hope of cutting something away. Coming from the eastward, the ship brought into this pass, between the reef and the shore, from fourteen to ten fathoms of water, which gradually shoaled to eight, when Capt. Bainbridge, seeing no prospect of overhauling the chase, then beginning to open the harbor of Tripoli, from which the frigate herself was distant but some three or four miles, ordered the helm a-port, and the yards braced forward, in the natural expectation of hauling directly off the land into deep water. The leads were going at the time, and, to the surprise of all on board, the water shoaled, as the frigate run off, instead of deepening. The yards were immediately ordered to be braced sharp up, and the ship brought close on a wind, in the hope of beating out of this seeming _cul de sac_, by the way in which she had entered. The command was hardly given, however, before the ship struck forward, and, having eight knots way on her, she shot up on the rocks until she had only fourteen and a half feet of water under her fore-chains. Under the bowsprit there were but twelve. Aft she floated, having, it is said, come directly out of six or seven fathoms of water into twelve and fifteen feet; all of which strictly corresponds with the soundings of the modern charts.[2]