We Stood On Till Half Past Three
O'clock, When We Saw, From The Deck, Rocks, Just Peeping Above The Surface
Of The Sea, On The Shoal Above-Mentioned.
It was now time to alter the
course, as the day was too far spent to look for a passage near the shore,
and we could find no bottom to anchor in during the night.
We therefore
stood to the south to look for a passage without the small isles. We had a
fine breeze at E.S.E., but it lasted no longer than five o'clock, when it
fell to a dead calm. Having sounded, a line of 170 fathoms did not reach
the bottom, though we were but a little way from the shoals, which, instead
of following the coast to S.W., took a S.E. direction towards the hill we
had seen the preceding evening, and seemed to point out to us that it was
necessary to go round that land. At this time the most advanced point on
the main bore S. 68 deg. W., distant nine or ten leagues. About seven o'clock
we got a light breeze at north, which enabled us to steer out E.S.E., and
to spend the night with less anxiety. On some of the low isles were many of
those elevations already mentioned. Every one was now satisfied they were
trees, except our philosophers, who still maintained that they were
basaltes.[1]
About day-break on the 26th, the wind having shifted to S.S.W., we
stretched to S.E. for the hill before mentioned.
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