The captain of a small prau at anchor, seeing me on deck and guessing who I was, made signals for us to stop, and brought me a letter from Charles Allen, who informed me he had been at Ternate twenty days, and was anxiously waiting my arrival.

This was good news, as I was equally anxious about him, and it cheered up my spirits.

A light southerly wind now sprung up, and we thought we were going to have fine weather.

It soon changed, however, to its old quarter, the west; dense clouds gathered over the sky, and in less than half an hour we had the severest squall we had experienced during our whole voyage.

Luckily we got our great mainsail down in time, or the consequences might have been serious.