"How vast indeed must be Asia, if all this and yet we come not--and now it is going on two years--to any clear hint of other than this!" He himself, the Admiral, began to feel this strangeness.

Or rather, he had long felt it and fought the feeling, but now strongly it came creeping over.
We were among the hugest number of small islands.

Starboard loomed, until it was lost in the farness, that coast that we were following, but the three ships were in a half-land, half-water world.

We wandered in this labyrinth, keeping with difficulty our way, so crooked and narrow the channels, so many the sandbars.

From deck it minded me of that sea of weed we met in the first passage.
Waves of fragrance struck us.