This, Endeavour Reef, and a sunken rock, about a mile east of Craggy Island, constitute the chief dangers between Kent Group and Flinders.  The extremes are marked to the north and south by Wright’s Rock and Craggy Island, between which ships should not pass, although there is a channel close to the south side of the former.  It should also be particularly borne in mind that the tides, which here sometimes run two knots, set rather across the channel South-West by South and North-East by North.  The north-easterly stream beginning a quarter before noon at the full and change of the moon.

DANGEROUS SITUATION

The Beagle passed half a mile from the north-west side of Wright’s Rock, in 29 fathoms, in the evening; and having spent the night standing to-and-fro between it and Kent Group, in the morning was abreast of the opening between the islands called Murray Pass, when we steered towards it.  The weather, for the season, was fine; and the sun, although weak, shone brightly from a clear wintry sky—­it well-nigh happened for the last time—­upon the poor old Beagle!

The sea, still vexed and chafing from the breeze of yesterday, rolled in with solemn grandeur on the storm-beaten sides of the islands; each heaving swell carrying the ship nearer towards the almost fatal opening.  Her motions, however, as if she was conscious of the fate that threatened her, were sluggish and slow, and she seemed unwillingly to obey the impulse of the light southerly breeze that aided her progress.  Indeed there appeared to be an opposing tide until we drew in between the high rocky sides of the channel, when suddenly the ship was hurried onwards with such rapidity that to prevent our being swept past a cove on the right it was necessary to close with its outer point, towards which a merciless eddy flung the ship’s head so rapidly, that before the thrown-aback sails checked her way, her jib-boom was almost over the rocks.* During the few awful moments that succeeded, a breathless silence prevailed; and naught was heard but the din of waters that foamed in fury around, as if impatient to engulf us in their giddy whirl.  Still, it must be confessed, that our hearts sickened within at the thought that our little bark, after having braved so many storms, and done so much good service to the state, might be left to whiten a foreign shore with her timbers.  Providence, however, decreed it should be otherwise; and the next moment the Beagle’s head was slowly paying off from the shore.  But her broadside becoming exposed to the swell, she was again driven in towards the point, and so close, that before the well-trimmed sails gave her way, as her stern went down with the swell, the assurance that she must strike, pervaded every shuddering frame.  To myself, the sensation was just as if my feet were under the keel; and I almost expected to feel the bones crushing.  Still we clung to hope, which can find a place even in the narrowest interval of danger; and our eyes and hearts were lifted up in supplication to Him who had already so miraculously reprieved us.  Scarcely, however, had the prayer been formed and preferred, when the peril was past:  in the course of an hour we were safely moored in East Cove, Kent Group.