[Footnote 97:  Captain Cook was not the original discoverer of these small islands which he now fell in with.  It is certain that they had been seen and named by Kerguelen, on his second voyage, in December 1773.  Their position, relatively to each other, and to the adjoining coasts of the greater land, bears a striking resemblance to Kerguelen’s delineation of them; whose chart, however, the public may be assured, was unknown in England till after that accompanying the account of this third voyage had been engraved.—­D.]

[Footnote 98:  This is the isle to which Kerguelen gave the name of Croy, or Crouy.  Besides delineating it upon his chart, he has added a particular view of it, exactly corresponding with Captain Cook’s account of its being of considerable height.—­D.]

[Footnote 99:  Kerguelen called this Isle Rolland, after the name of his own ship.  There is also a particular view of it on the French chart.—­D.]

[Footnote 100:  The observations of the French and English navigators agree exactly as to the position of these smaller isles.—­D.]

[Footnote 101:  The situation of Kerguelen’s Isle de Clugny, as marked on this chart, shews it to be the third high island seen by Captain Cook.—­D.]

We did but just weather the island last mentioned.  It is a high round rock, which was named Bligh’s Cap.  Perhaps this is the same that Monsieur de Kerguelen called the Isle of Rendezvous;[102] but I know nothing that can rendezvous at it, but fowls of the air; for it is certainly inaccessible to every other animal.

[Footnote 102:  This isle, or rock, was the single point about which Captain Cook had received the least information at Teneriffe; and we may observe how sagacious he was in tracing it.  What he could only speak of as probable, a comparison of his chart with that lately published by Kerguelen, proves to be certain; and if he had even read and copied what his predecessor in the discovery says of it, he could scarcely have varied his account of its shape.  Kerguelen’s words are, “Isle de Reunion, qui n’est qu’une Roche, nous servoit de Rendezvous, ou de point de ralliement; et ressemble a un coin de mire.”—­D.]

At eleven o’clock the weather began to clear up, and we immediately tacked, and steered in for the land.  At noon, we had a pretty good observation, which enabled us to determine the latitude of Bligh’s Cap, which is the northernmost island, to be 48 deg. 29’ S., and its longitude 68 deg. 40’ E.’[103] We passed it at three o’clock, standing to the S.S.E., with a fresh gale at W.

[Footnote 103:  The French and English agree very nearly (as might be expected) in their accounts of the latitude of this island; but the observations by which they fix its longitude vary considerably.  The pilot at Teneriffe made it only 64 deg. 57’ E. from Paris, which is about 67 deg. 16’ E. from London; or 1 deg. 24’ more westerly than Captain Cook’s observations fix it.  Monsieur de Pages says it is 66 deg. 47’ E. from Paris, that is, 69 deg. 6’ E. from London, or twenty-six miles more easterly than it is placed by Captain Cook.  Kerguelen himself only says that it is about 68 deg. of E. longitude, par 68 deg. de longitude.—­D.]