I then went on board to breakfast, leaving my two men to make a bamboo raft to carry us on shore and back without wading.
I had scarcely finished when our cable broke, and we bumped against the rocks.

Luckily it was smooth and calm, and no damage was done.

We searched for and got up our anchor, and found teat the cable had been cut by grating all night upon the coral.

Had it given way in the night, we might have drifted out to sea without our anchor, or been seriously damaged.

In the evening we went to fetch water from the well, when, greatly to our dismay, we found nothing but a little liquid mud at the bottom, and it then became evident that the hole was one which had been made to collect rain water, and would never fill again as long as the present drought continued.