With Our Best Glasses We Could See Nothing But Hills
Of A Moderate Height, Cloathed With Trees, To Which Some Little Patches
Of White Sandstone Gave The Appearance Of Being Covered With Snow.
Many Fires Were Observed On The Hills In The Evening.
As no person in the ship I was on board had been on this coast before,
we consulted a
Little chart, published by Steele, of the Minories, London,
and found it, in general, very correct; it would be more so, were not
the Mewstone laid down at too great a distance from the land, and one object
made of the Eddystone and Swilly, when, in fact, they are distinct.
Between the two last is an entire bed of impassable rocks, many of them
above water. The latitude of the Eddystone is 43 deg 53 1/2 min,
longitude 147 deg 9 min; that of Swilly 43 deg 54 min south, longitude
147 deg 3 min east of Greenwich.
In the night the westerly wind, which had so long befriended us, died away,
and was succeeded by one from the north-east. When day appeared we had
lost sight of the land, and did not regain it until the 19th,
at only the distance of 17 leagues from our desired port. The wind was now
fair, the sky serene, though a little hazy, and the temperature of the air
delightfully pleasant: joy sparkled in every countenance, and congratulations
issued from every mouth. Ithaca itself was scarcely more longed for
by Ulysses, than Botany Bay by the adventurers who had traversed
so many thousand miles to take possession of it.
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