At Ten
O'clock I Saw A Great Fire Bearing North-West-By-West, Blazing Up In
A Pillar, Sometimes Very High For Three Or Four Minutes, Then
Falling Quite Down For An Equal Space Of Time, Sometimes Hardly
Visible, Till It Blazed Up Again.
I had laid me down, having been
indisposed these three days; but upon a sight of this, my chief mate
called me; I got up and viewed it for about half an hour, and knew
it to be a burning hill by its intervals:
I charged them to look
well out, having bright moonlight. In the morning I found that the
fire we had seen the night before was a burning island, and steered
for it. We saw many other islands, one large high island, and
another smaller but pretty high. I stood near the volcano, and many
small low islands, with some shoals.
March the 25th, 1700, in the evening we came within three leagues of
this burning hill, being at the same time two leagues from the main;
I found a good channel to pass between them, and kept nearer the
main than the island. At seven in the evening I sounded, and had
fifty-two fathom fine sand and ooze. I stood to the northward to
get clear of this strait, having but little wind and fair weather.
The island all night vomited fire and smoke very amazingly, and at
every belch we heard a dreadful noise like thunder, and saw a flame
of fire after it the most terrifying that ever I saw; the intervals
between its belches were about half a minute, some more, others
less; neither were these pulses or eruptions alike, for some were
but faint convulsions, in comparison of the more vigorous; yet even
the weakest vented a great deal of fire; but the largest made a
roaring noise, and sent up a large flame, twenty or thirty yards
high; and then might be seen a great stream of fire running down to
the foot of the island, even to the shore.
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