They Also Brought On Board Some Pigeons, Of
Which We Found Plenty On All The Islands Where We Touched In These
Seas:
Also in many places we saw many large bats, but killed none,
except those I mentioned at Pub Sabuda.
As our boats came aboard,
we weighed and made sail, steering east-south-east as long as the
wind held. In the morning we found we had got four or five leagues
to the east of the place where we weighed. We stood to and fro till
eleven; and finding that we lost ground, anchored in forty-two
fathom coarse gravelly sand, with some coral. This morning we
thought we saw a sail.
In the afternoon I went ashore on a small woody island, about two
leagues from us. Here I found the greatest number of pigeons that
ever I saw either in the East or West Indies, and small cockles in
the sea round the island in such quantities that we might have laden
the boat in an hour's time. These were not above ten or twelve
pounds' weight. We cut some wood, and brought off cockles enough
for all the ship's company; but having no small shot, we could kill
no pigeons. I returned about four o'clock, and then my gunner and
both mates went thither, and in less than three-quarters of an hour
they killed and brought off ten pigeons. Here is a tide: the flood
sets west and the ebb east, but the latter is very faint and but of
small continuance, and so we found it ever since we came from Timer:
the winds we found easterly, between north-east and east-south-east,
so that if these continue, it is impossible to beat farther to the
eastward on this coast against wind and current.
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