At Three O'clock We Discovered Another Small
Flat Island To The North-West Of The Others, And Saw A Great Deal Of
Smoke Rise From The Top Of The High Island.
At four we saw other
small islands, by which I was now assured that these were the Bande
Isles there.
At five I altered my course and steered east, and at
eight east-south-east, because I would not be seen by the
inhabitants of those islands in the morning. We had little wind all
night, and in the morning, as soon as it was light we saw another
high peaked island; at eight it bore south-south-east half-east,
distance eight leagues: and this I knew to be Bird Isle. It is
laid down in our drafts in latitude 5 degrees 9 minutes south, which
is too far southerly by twenty-seven miles, according to our
observation, and the like error in laying down the Turtle Islands
might be the occasion of our missing them.
At night I shortened sail, for fear of coming too nigh some islands,
that stretch away bending like a half moon from Ceram towards Timor,
and which in my course I must of necessity pass through. The next
morning betimes I saw them, and found them to be at a farther
distance from Bird Island than I expected. In the afternoon it fell
quite calm, and when we had a little wind, it was so unconstant,
flying from one point to another, that I could not without
difficulty get through the islands where I designed; besides, I
found a current setting to the southward, so that it was betwixt
five and six in the evening before I passed through the islands, and
then just weathered little Watela, whereas I thought to have been
two or three leagues more northerly. We saw the day before, betwixt
two and three, a spout but a small distance from us, it fell down
out of a black cloud, that yielded great store of rain, thunder and
lightning; this cloud hovered to the southward of us for the space
of three hours, and then drew to the westward a great pace, at which
time it was that we saw the spout, which hung fast to the cloud till
it broke, and then the cloud whirled about to the south-east, then
to east-north-east, where meeting with an island, it spent itself
and so dispersed, and immediately we had a little of the tail of it,
having had none before. Afterwards we saw a smoke on the island
Kosiway, which continued till night.
On New Year's Day we first descried the land of New Guinea, which
appeared to be high land, and the next day we saw several high
islands on the coast of New Guinea, and ran in with the main land.
The shore here lies along east-south-east and west-north-west. It
is high even land, very well clothed with tall flourishing trees,
which appeared very green, and gave us a very pleasant prospect.
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