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20 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR CHAP. II. should have appeared, presented an unbroken line of sea and sky. These circumstances forced upon us the conviction that, although at one time it was said we were only fifteen miles from the anchorage, and at another that land was actually in sight, both captain and mate were probably doing little more than guessing at our position. On the morning of the 17th we stood towards the land with a fair wind, but, on approaching the coast about noon, near a small island called Plumb Island, we found ourselves about six or eight miles to the north of the entrance to the port, with the wind and sea driving us still further away. We stood out to sea again for a couple of hours, and then returned; but finding ourselves, on nearing the land, still fruther from our port, with the wind increasing against us, our vessel was once more turned towards the open sea. As we sailed as near to the wind as possible, and the sea was very rough, the motion of our light ship was exceedingly violent, and the effect of this upon my own feelings was heightened by the wretched accommoda tion on board, and by my remembrance of having, in one of my former voyages, been kept twenty-one days out of harbour in consequence of having, in a heavy gale of wind, made the land on the coast of New Holland four miles to leeward of the port. The following night, so far as regarded external circum stances, was miserable enough. The howling of the wind, the dashing of the spray over our ship and into our cabin, the rattling of seats and boxes about the floor, the banging of cupboard doors without fastenings, the flickering of a dim dirty lamp swinging to and fro, and the frequent inspection of the chart by the captain, made the hours of darkness pass very heavily. But it was not in relation to my own personal experi ence alone that these circumstances imparted their own dismal character to the tenour of my thoughts, for I found myself reflecting on the cheerless manner in which the last hours of one of the devoted missionaries to Madagascar, Mr. Jeffreys,