A Breeze At S.E. Relieved Us From The Anxiety The Calm Had
Occasioned; And We Spent The Night In Making Short Boards.
The night before we came out of Port Sandwich, two reddish fish, about the
size of large bream, and not unlike them, were caught with hook and line.
On these fish most of the officers, and some of the petty officers, dined
the next day.
The night following, every one who had eaten of them was
seized with violent pains in the head and bones, attended with a scorching
heat all over the skin, and numbness in the joints. There remained no doubt
that this was occasioned by the fish being of a poisonous nature, and
having communicated its bad effects to all who partook of them, even to the
hogs and dogs. One of the former died about sixteen hours after; it was not
long before one of the latter shared the same fate; and it was a week or
ten days before all the gentlemen recovered. These must have been the same
sort of fish mentioned by Quiros,[1] under the name of pargos, which
poisoned the crews of his ships, so that it was some time before they
recovered; and we should, doubtless, have been in the same situation, had
more of them been eaten.
At day break on the 25th, we made a short stretch to the east of Shepherd's
Isles till after sun-rise, when seeing no more land in that direction, we
tacked and stood for the island we had seen in the south, having a gentle
breeze at S.E. We passed to the east of Threehills, and likewise of a low
isle, which lies on the S.E. side of it, between a remarkable peaked rock
which obtained the name of Monument, and a small island named Twohills, on
account of two peaked hills upon it, disjoined by a low and narrow isthmus.
The channel between this island and the Monument is near a mile broad, and
twenty-four fathoms deep. Except this rock, which is only accessible to
birds, we did not find an island on which people were not seen. At noon, we
observed, in latitude 17 deg. 18' 30"; longitude, made from Port Sandwich, 45'
E. In this situation, the Monument bore N. 16 deg. E. distant two miles;
Twohills bore N. 25 deg. W. distant two miles, and in a line with the S.W. part
of Threehills; and the islands to the south extended from S. 16 deg. 30' E. to
S. 42 deg. W.
Continuing our course to the south, at five p.m. we drew near the southern
lands, which we found to consist of one large island, whose southern and
western extremities extended beyond our sight, and three or four smaller
ones lying off its north side. The two northernmost are much the largest,
have a good height, and lie in the direction of E. by S. and W. by N. from
each other, distant two leagues; I named the one Montagu and the other
Hinchinbrook, and the large island Sandwich, in honour of my noble patron
the Earl of Sandwich.
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