At Length We Got A Breeze At E.N.E. With Which We Steered
To The South.
At five o'clock p.m., Resolution Bay bore E.N.E. 1/2 E.
distant five leagues, and the island Magdalena S.E., about nine leagues
distant.
This was the only sight we had of this isle. From hence I steered
S.S.W. 1/2 W. for Otaheite, with a view of falling in with some of those
isles discovered by former navigators, especially those discovered by the
Dutch, whose situations are not well determined. But it will be necessary
to return to the Marquesas; which were, as I have already observed, first
discovered by Mendana, a Spaniard, and from him obtained the general name
they now bear, as well as those of the different isles. The nautical
account of them, in vol. i. p. 61, of Dalrymple's Collection of Voyages to
the South Seas, is deficient in nothing but situation. This was my chief
reason for touching, at them; the settling this point is the more useful,
as it will in a great measure fix the situations of Mendana's other
discoveries.
The Marquesas are five in number, viz. La Magdalena, St Pedro, La Dominica,
Santa Christina, and Hood's Island, which is the northernmost, situated in
latitude 9 deg. 26' S., and N. 13 deg. W., five leagues and a half distant from the
east point of La Dominica, which is the largest of all the isles, extending
east and west six leagues.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 517 of 885
Words from 139688 to 139938
of 239428
