Things were beginning now to look decidedly serious. I had but three days of fuel on board, and, upon consulting my chart, I found that I was still 550 miles from my port, current taken into account. It was not possible for the dull little _Sumter_ to make this distance, in the given time, if the wind, and current should continue of the same strength. I resolved to try her, however, another night, hoping that some change for the better might take place. My journal tells the tale of that night as follows:--
_August 11th._--"The morning has dawned with a fresh breeze, and rather rough sea, into which we have been plunging all night, making but little headway. The genius of the east wind refuses to permit even steam to invade his domain, and drives us back, with disdain. His ally, the current, has retarded us sixty miles in the last twenty-four hours!" I now no longer hesitated, but directing the engineer to let his fires go down, turned my ship's head, to the westward, and made sail; it being my intention to run down the coast to Cayenne in French Guiana, with the hope of obtaining a fresh supply of fuel at that place. We soon had the studding sails on the ship, and were rolling along to the northward and westward, with more grace than speed, our rate of sailing being only four knots. The afternoon proved to be remarkably fine, and we should have enjoyed this _far niente_ change, but for our disappointment. Our chief regret was that we were losing so much valuable time, in the midst of the stirring events of the war.
Hauling in for the coast, in the vicinity of Cape Orange, we struck soundings about nightfall. The sea now became quite smooth, and the wind fell very light during the night--the current, however, is hurrying us on, though its set is not exactly in the right direction. Its tendency is to drive us too far from the coast. The next day, it became perfectly calm, and so continued all day. We were in twenty-three fathoms of water, and could see by the lead line that we were drifting over the bottom at the rate of about two knots an hour. We got out our fishing-lines, and caught some deep sea-fish, of the grouper species. The sea was alive with the nautilus, and the curious sea-nettle, with its warps and hawsers thrown out, and its semi-transparent, gelatinous disc contracting and expanding, as the little animal extracted its food from the water. Schools of fish, large and small, were playing about in every direction, and flocks of sea-gulls, and other marine birds of prey, were hovering over them, and making occasional forays in their midst. During the day, a sail was descried, far in shore, but we were unable to make it out; indeed sails were of the least importance to us now, as we were unable to chase. Just before sunset, we had a fine view of the Silver Mountains, some forty or fifty miles distant, in the south-west.