invalids soon felt the benefit of the abundant fresh fruits and water; and although twenty-one were buried in the first and succeeding day, they did not lose above ten more during the two months of their stay at the island. One of the drawbacks of a stay at Tinian was the roadstead, which, with its coral bottom, afforded a bad anchorage during the western monsoons. This was convincingly proved to the people of the _Centurion_. In the third week of September the wind blew with such fury that all communication with the shore was cut off, as no boat could live in the sea raised by it. The small bower cable, and afterwards their best bower, parted. The waves broke over the devoted ship, and the long-boat, at that time moored astern, was on a sudden canted so high that it broke the transom of the commodore’s cabin on the quarter-deck, and was itself stove to pieces, the poor boat-keeper, though extremely bruised, being saved almost by a miracle. The end of all this was that the ship was driven to sea, leaving Anson, several officers, and a great part of the crew on shore, amounting in the whole to one hundred and thirteen persons. The poor wretches on the ship expected each moment to be their last, as they were altogether too few and weak to work a large vessel. “The storm which drove the _Centurion_ to sea blew with too much turbulence to permit either the commodore or any of the people on shore to hear the guns which she fired as signals of distress; and the frequent glare of the lightning had prevented the explosions from being observed; so that when at daybreak it was perceived from the shore that the ship was missing, there was the utmost consternation amongst them, for much the greatest part of them immediately concluded that she was lost.” Anson, whatever he thought himself, did all in his power to reason them out of the idea, and immediately proposed that if she did not return in a few days they should cut in half a small bark, a Spanish prize they had taken, and lengthen her about twelve feet, which would enable her to carry them all to China. After some days the men began to consider this their only chance, and worked zealously at their allotted employments. These were interrupted one day by “A sail!” being announced. Presently a second was descried, which quite destroyed the conjecture that it was the ship herself. The revulsion of feeling in Anson’s bosom was so strong, that for once he was quite unmanned, and retired to his tent, with the bitter feeling that now he could not hope to signalise the expedition by any great exploit. He was, however, soon relieved by finding that the boats were Indian proas, which, after cruising off the island for a time, suddenly departed, and were lost to sight. The recital of the details connected with the transformation of the bark would be tedious; suffice it to say, that they had to manufacture many of the necessary tools, cut down