These Easterly
Winds Increased From The Time We Were In The Latitude Of About 2
Degrees South, And As We Drew Nigher The Line They Hung More
Easterly:
And now being to the north of the continent of New
Guinea, where the coast lies east and west,
I find the trade-wind
here at east, which yet in higher latitudes is usually at north-
north-west and north-west; and so I did expect them here, it being
to the south of the line.
The 7th, in the morning, I sent my boat ashore on Pigeon Island, and
stayed till noon. In the afternoon my men returned, brought twenty-
two pigeons, and many cockles, some very large, some small: they
also brought one empty shell, that weighed two hundred and fifty-
eight pounds.
At four o'clock we weighed, having a small westerly wind and a tide
with us; at seven in the evening we anchored in forty-two fathom,
near King William's Island, where I went ashore the next morning,
drank His Majesty's health, and honoured it with his name. It is
about two leagues and a half in length, very high and
extraordinarily well clothed with woods; the trees are of divers
sorts, most unknown to us, but all very green and flourishing; many
of them had flowers, some white, some purple, others yellow: all
which smelt very fragrantly: the trees are generally tall and
straight bodied, and may be fit for any use. I saw one of a clean
body, without knot or limb, sixty or seventy feet high by
estimation; it was three of my fathoms about, and kept its bigness,
without any sensible decrease, even to the top.
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