I however humoured them so far as to put back for the mouth of the opening, where, under the shelter of a reef, we could lie at anchor for a few hours in the hope that the sea would lull a little; we however only just cleared Steep Point, and whilst doing so I felt certain for two or three minutes that we must have gone ashore, for each breaker lifted the boat bodily towards the cliffs; as it was however it pleased Providence to bring us safe to our anchorage. We were now about to enter on the most perilous part of our journey homewards. For the next one hundred and twenty miles along the coast I could not hope to find a place whereon to beach the boats, in the event of our meeting with those unfavourable winds which we had hitherto found so prevalent. It would, in the present weak state of the party, take us many successive days to make this passage; and, should the weather be really foul, accompanied by strong gales from the south-west, our fate would soon have been decided. Nevertheless our hope of ultimate safety rested altogether upon the accomplishment of the difficult task we were about to commence. INSUBORDINATION CHECKED. I soon found that remaining in a state of inactivity would but increase our difficulties; for as the men talked over them to one another, they grew wore and more gloomy, and when at length I gave a particular order to a man of the name of Woods he quietly refused to obey it, saying that he now considered that his life was altogether lost, and that he would therefore knock off work. I was rather puzzled for a minute or two as to how I ought to act under these circumstances, for such an example as he had set necessarily exercised a bad influence over the others; yet there was no use in threatening to punish where I had not the means to do so; I therefore merely turned round to the man who had the charge of sharing out our scanty allowance of provisions and desired him to divide Woods' portion of water and provisions amongst the rest of us today, as I intended for the future that he should have none, at all events not until he did his fair share of work. This had the desired effect; he soon came to his senses and told me that I might as well throw him overboard at once as starve him, to which I replied that unless he overcame his cowardice and bore his proportion of the toil we all had to go through I should in no way whatever interfere with his starving, being thrown overboard, or anything else; but that I would take very good care that he had neither a morsel to eat or a drop of water to drink; whereupon he again resumed his duty and from that time forward proved to be one of the best men I had with me; indeed I never again had occasion to find fault with him.