to the east, on the look-out for a new group of islands, among which
Hartog expected to find the Island of Gems, when, one morning, we
observed the horizon to have assumed a black look as though a storm was
brewing, but on nearing this phenomenon, we found it to consist of an
immense growth of seaweed floating upon the ocean, and extending as far
as the eye could reach.

The course we were steering would have carried us into the midst of the
weed, so we hauled our wind, and coasted along it to the south, hoping
either to find an opening through which we might pass, or to come to
the end of the floating mass, but the farther we proceeded the thicker
the weed became, while other masses now appeared to larboard, so that
we feared we might be enmeshed in such a manner that we would find it
impossible to extricate ourselves. I had read of a sea covered by a
weed which held ships entangled as in a net, and I feared that this was
the danger into which fate had now led us. Portions of the kelp
detached from the main mass, which floated alongside the ship, proved
it to be a growth of extraordinary strength, the weed extending twenty
feet and more below the surface of the water, and being so tough that
two of our men between them were unable to break a specimen we drew on
board, so that if we should become entangled in the kelp, we knew that
death by slow starvation, when our provisions were exhausted, would
await us.

During the day upon which we first sighted this phenomenon we attempted
every manoeuvre of navigation to keep the ship clear of the weed, but
in spite of all we could do, and the ceaseless watch Hartog and I
between us kept on deck, the dawn of the next day found the ship as
stationary as though we had run ashore.