Bougainville now made sail to the S.W. for a long coast in sight, extending as far as the eye could reach, from S.W. to W.N.W., but as there was little or no wind during the 24th, both day and night, he was left to the mercy of the currents, which would scarcely allow him to get three leagues off the Isle of Lepers.  He advanced somewhat better on the 25th, though the Etoile still lay becalmed, and at last found himself, as it were, shut up in a great gulph in the land, which lay to the west.  Not knowing whether he was so or not, it became necessary to stand again towards that island, and in consequence the 25th was lost in making short tacks, which were the more required, as the Etoile did not feel the breeze till the evening.

The bearings taken on the 26th, shewed that the currents had taken them several miles to the southward of their reckoning.  Whitsun-isle still appeared separated from the S.W. land, but by a narrower passage, and what had before been considered a continued coast, was now found to be a cluster of islands.  Some agreeable appearances induced several attempts at landing, but they were unavailing, and only exposed those that made them to attacks from the natives, who seemed to concur with the natural difficulties around their islands, in preventing too near an approach.  Bougainville bestowed the name of Archipelago of the Great Cyclades on these very numerous isles, which lie in 30 deg.  S. latitude, and 180 deg. longitude west of Ferro, and which have been better known since the time of Cook by the name of New Hebrides.  During Bougainville’s being on board the Etoile about this time, transacting some necessary business, he had the opportunity of verifying a report, which had for a good while been circulated in both ships, viz. that M. de Commercon’s servant, named Bare, was a woman.  Several suspicious circumstances had been noticed as to her sex, and something amounting to a discovery of it had been made, it seems, by the very discerning people of Otaheite; but now, she came to Bougainville, her face covered with tears, and confessed it, giving a history of herself, and an explanation of her reasons for undertaking so romantic an expedition.  “She will be the first woman,” says Bougainville, “that ever made such a voyage, and I must do her the justice to affirm, that she always behaved on board with the most scrupulous modesty.  She was neither ugly nor handsome, and not more than twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age.  It must be owned, that if the two ships had been wrecked on any uninhabited island in the ocean, the fate of Bare would have been a very singular one.”  The idea perhaps is scarcely susceptible of embellishment, but one may wonder, that it never struck the fancy of a poet.