Our gallant captain of the beard—‘the Lord have mercy upon him for a hen!’—determined to doze away the day, and to pass a snug sleepy night, anchored in some quiet bight. His crew also, although living upon Jack fruit, and supplied with only two skins of fresh water, grumbled exceedingly when I ordered a δρομος νυχθημερος. For a whole day they had tacked about the creek and basin till the shades of evening fell, and force was required to keep the canvas aloft. Presently, when running out of Pemba, grave doubts and misgivings about the wisdom of the proceeding came over me as the moonless night fell like a pall, and, exaggerated by the dim twinkling of the stars, rose within biscuit-toss the silhouettes of islet and flat rock, whence proceeded the threatening sounds of a ‘wash.’ Soon, however, emerging from the reefs, we smelt sea air, and we felt with pleasure the throb of the Indian Ocean. During the three days that followed our patience was sorely tried. The sky was now misty, hiding the shore, so that sometimes we went south instead of north; then the spitting deepened to heavy rain, whilst the thermometer stood at 83° (F.). The Azyab or N. East wind, high and contrary, blew great guns, and a strong current set clean against us. The combing sea, with waves raised some five feet, was most unpleasant during the long moonless nights: on this coast there are more shoals and coralline reefs than harbours, and the lee-shore, within a few yards of which we were periodically drifted, was steep to, with rocky banks and bars. Mariners rarely sail by night, except before a fair and steady wind, and in the open roadsteads they are ill-defended from the strong N. East monsoon. We long sighted the two high hummocks called Wasin Peaks, and we were compelled to ride at anchor off Gasi Bay, the strained old Riami creaking at every timber, and rolling gunwales under. Pleasant scenes were the rule. Mutton-livered Saíd, groaning and weeping, started up every half-hour during that ‘black night,’ and screamed with voice altered by violent flesh-quake, till he makes us all nervous as himself. The captain, sitting on the Zuli (deck), cried, Rih! Rih!—wind! wind!—asked what could be done, and more than once, as we were driven on towards a reef, definitively declared the Riami lost. The sailors, green and yellow with hard work and hunger, tacking out with the Barri (land breeze), and in with the Azyab, would not bale except under the stick. The iron boat sinking once, and twice snapping her painter in the long rolling sea, gave us abundant trouble. At last, as a thick cloud veiled Jupiter and Venus, a cry arose that she had again broken loose; and we resolved to make Mombasah, trusting that Tate would restore her. More than once we thought of landing, and of walking along the shore to our destination: for if all was unpleasant outside the ‘Beden,’ the inside, with its atmosphere of cockroaches, bilge water, and rotting wood, was scarcely more attractive.