A Voyage to New Holland eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 137 pages of information about A Voyage to New Holland.

A Voyage to New Holland eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 137 pages of information about A Voyage to New Holland.
is, from the true tradewind to the seabreeze, as the land now lay) we could not get in with the land again yet awhile, so as to see it, though we trimmed sharp and kept close on a wind.  We were this 19th day in latitude 21 degrees 42 minutes.  The 20th we were in latitude 19 degrees 37 minutes and kept close on a wind to get sight of the land again, but could not yet see it.  We had very fair weather, and though we were so far from the land as to be out of sight of it, yet we had the sea and land-breezes.  In the night we had the land-breeze at south-south-east, a small gentle gale; which in the morning about sunrising would shift about gradually (and withal increasing in strength) till about noon we should have it at east-south-east, which is the true sea breeze here.  Then it would blow a brisk gale, so that we could scarce carry our topsails double reefed:  and it would continue thus till 3 in the afternoon, when it would decrease again.  The weather was fair all the while, not a cloud to be seen; but very hazy, especially nigh the horizon.  We sounded several times this 20th day and at first had no ground; but had afterwards from 52 to 45 fathom, coarse brown sand, mixed with small brown and white stones, with dints besides in the tallow.

The 21st day also we had small land breezes in the night and seabreezes in the day:  and as we saw some seasnakes every day, so this day we saw a great many, of two different sorts or shapes.  One sort was yellow, and about the bigness of a man’s wrist, about 4 foot long, having a flat tail about 4 fingers broad.  The other sort was much smaller and shorter, round and spotted black and yellow.  This day we sounded several times, and had 45 fathom sand.  We did not make the land till noon, and then saw it first from our topmast-head.  It bore south-east by east about 9 leagues distance; and it appeared like a cape or head of land.  The seabreeze this day was not so strong as the day before, and it veered out more; so that we had a fair wind to run in with to the shore, and at sunset anchored in 20 fathom, clean sand, about 5 leagues from the bluff point; which was not a cape (as it appeared at a great distance) but the easternmost end of an island, about 5 or 6 leagues in length and 1 in breadth.  There were 3 or 4 rocky islands about a league from us between us and the bluff point; and we saw many other islands both to the east and west of it, as far as we could see either way from our topmast-head:  and all within them to the south there was nothing but islands of a pretty height, that may be seen 8 or 9 leagues off.  By what we saw of them they must have been a range of islands of about 20 leagues in length, stretching from east-north-east to west-south-west and, for ought I know, as far as to those of Shark’s Bay; and to a considerable breadth also (for we could see 9 or 10 leagues in among them) towards the continent or mainland of New Holland, if there be any such thing hereabouts:  and, by the great tides I met with

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A Voyage to New Holland from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.