The upper end seemed vastly high, not descending from any
dark cloud, and therefore the more strange to me, I never having
seen the like before.
It passed about a mile to leeward of us, and
then broke. This was but a small spout, not strong nor lasting; yet
I perceived much wind in it as it passed by us. The current still
continued at north-west a little westerly, which I allowed to run a
mile per hour.
By an observation the 13th, at noon, I found myself 25 minutes to
the northward of my reckoning; whether occasioned by bad steerage, a
bad account, or a current, I could not determine; but was apt to
judge it might be a complication of all; for I could not think it
was wholly the current, the land here lying east-by-south, and west-
by-north, or a little more northerly and southerly. We had kept so
nigh as to see it, and at farthest had not been above twenty leagues
from it, but sometimes much nearer; and it is not probable that any
current should set directly off from a land. A tide indeed may; but
then the flood has the same force to strike in upon the shore, as
the ebb to strike off from it: but a current must have set nearly
along shore, either easterly or westerly; and if anything northerly
or southerly, it could be but very little in comparison of its east
or west course, on a coast lying as this doth; which yet we did not
perceive.
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