Chapter 12 - Page 2

the northward, running nearly due north, indeed, while the other
might be followed in a south-easterly direction, far as the eye could
reach. Mark named the rock at the junction 'Point Fork,' and chose the
latter passage, which appeared the most promising, and the wind
permitting him to lay through it. The Bridget tacked in the Forks,
therefore, and stood away to the south-east, pretty close to the wind.
Various other channels communicated with this main passage, or the Hope;
and, about noon, Mark tacked into one of them, heading about north-east,
when trimmed up sharp to do so. The water was deep, and at first the
passage was half a mile in width; but after standing along it for a mile
or two, it seemed all at once to terminate in an oval basin, that might
have been a mile in its largest diameter, and which was bounded to the
eastward by a belt of rock that rose some twenty feet above the water.
The bottom of this basin was a clear beautiful sand, and its depth of
water, on sounding, Mark found was uniformly about eight fathoms. A more
safe or convenient basin for the anchorage of ships could not have been
formed by the art of man, had there been an entrance to it, and any
inducement for them to come there.

Mark had beaten about 'Oval Harbour,' as he named the place, for half
an hour, before he was struck by the circumstance that the even
character of its surface appeared to be a little disturbed by a slight
undulation which seemed to come from its north-eastern extremity.
Tacking the Bridget, he stood in that direction, and on reaching the
place, found that there was a passage through the rock of about a
hundred yards in width. The wind permitting, the boat shot through this
passage, and was immediately heaving and setting in the long swells of
the open ocean. At first Mark was startled by the roar of the waves that
plunged into the caverns of the rocks, and trembled lest his boat might
be hove up against that hard and iron-bound coast, where one toss would
shatter his little craft into splinters. Too steady a seaman, however,
to abandon his object unnecessarily, he stood on, and soon found he
could weather the rocks under his lee, tacking in time. After two or
three short stretches were made, Mark found himself half a mile to
windward of a long line, or coast, of dark rock, that rose from twenty
to twenty-five feet above the level of the water, and beyond all
question in the open ocean. He hove-to to sound, and let forty fathoms
of line out without reaching bottom. But everywhere to leeward of him
was land, or rock; while everywhere to windward, as well as ahead and
astern, it was clear water. This, then, was the eastern limit of the old
shoals, now converted into dry land. Here the Rancocus had, unknown to