The gale reached its height about four o'clock on the following morning, at which hour it was blowing very hard, with an exceedingly heavy and dangerous sea, in which the boats could not possibly have lived but for the precautions which had been taken for their preservation; and even as it was, we repeatedly escaped disaster only by the merest hair's- breadth, and by what seemed to be more a combination of fortuitous circumstances than anything else.
