In Passing Out We Saw Three Water-
Serpents Swimming About In The Sea, Of A Yellow Colour Spotted With
Dark Brown Spots.
They were each about four foot long, and about
the bigness of a man's wrist, and were the first I saw on this
coast, which abounds with several sorts of them.
We had the winds
at our first coming out at north, and the land lying north-easterly.
We plied off and on, getting forward but little till the next day,
when the wind coming at south-south-west and south, we began to
coast it along the shore on the northward, keeping at six or seven
leagues off shore, and sounding often, we had between forty and
forty-six fathom water, brown sand with some white shells. This
15th of August we were in latitude 24 degrees 41 minutes. On the
16th day, at noon, we were in 23 degrees 22 minutes. The wind
coming at east by north, we could not keep the shore aboard, but
were forced to go farther off, and lost sight of the land; then
sounding, we had no ground with eighty-fathom line. However, the
wind shortly after came about again to the southward, and then we
jogged on again to the northward, and saw many small dolphins and
whales, and abundance of cuttle-shells swimming on the sea, and some
water-snakes every day. The 17th we saw the land again and took a
sight of it.
The 18th, in the afternoon, being three or four leagues off shore, I
saw a shoal-point stretching from the land into the sea a league or
more; the sea broke high on it, by which I saw plainly there was a
shoal there.
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