Soon the water grew too deep for his pole and he had to take to the paddle, much to my satisfaction--for the paddle is a comparatively feeble appliance for driving a large heavy dug-out--and as a result, he soon began to fall astern; but he worked with a will, and soon I saw that I should have great difficulty in shaking him off. The behaviour of my canoe gave me unbounded satisfaction. She bore her sail well, and would have carried more with ease, even in this fresh breeze; her speed was fully up to my expectations, and, with her leeboard down, she made hardly any leeway. She was quite dry, too, although the lagoon was very choppy, and the sharp, hollow waves struck her with great force; but I was glad I had put a high coaming round the well, for the water splashed freely across the deck. It was greatly against me in the race with my unknown pursuer that I knew next to nothing of the locality and that I had no settled destination, for had I only had some refuge to make for, I could have drawn ahead of him without difficulty. As it was, my goal was the south shore of the lagoon, which I knew ran parallel to the sea shore, but how wide was the strip of land separating the lagoon from the sea, I could not tell. It might be a few hundred yards or it might be several miles. I had not been sailing very long before a few scattered cocoa-nut palms appeared above the horizon ahead and soon the south shore was well in sight, running apparently due east and west; and as the wind blew from the south-west, I had to sail pretty close-hauled to head due south, in which, however, I was assisted by the current from the river, which ran sluggishly to the west. As I approached the shore, I rapidly turned over the alternatives it presented. I could go about and sail due west towards Assiní, where there was a European Station--French, I believed. But Assiní was a long way off--from twenty to thirty miles--and I should have to sail all night in unknown waters to reach it, while my pursuer would certainly follow with reinforcements. Then I could go straight on shore and investigate; or lastly, I could sail eastward with the wind and look for a suitable place to land. I chose the last plan, as it gave me the advantage of a fair wind, and when I had come within a few hundred yards of the shore I turned sharply to the east and ran along at fine speed in the smooth water, with my sheet well out. The appearance of the shore was not encouraging. The longed-for boom of the surf was indeed audible, but it sounded a long way off, as if a wide stretch of land lay between me and the sea; and straight ahead, at a distance of a few miles, a headland jutted out far into the lagoon.