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.  We ran to the westward of four mountainous islands, and in the night had a small tornado, which brought with it some rain and a fair wind.  We had fair weather for a long time, only when near any land we had some tornadoes; but off, at sea, commonly clear weather, though, if in sight of land, we usually saw many black clouds hovering about it.

On the 5th and 6th of January we plied to get in with the land, designing to anchor, fill water, and spend a little time in searching the country, till after the change of the moon, for I found a strong current setting against us.  We anchored in thirty-eight fathom water, good oozy ground.  We had an island of a league long without us, about three miles distant, and we rode from the main about a mile.  The easternmost point of land seen bore east-by-south half-south, distance three leagues, and the westernmost west-south-west half-south, distance two leagues.  So soon as we anchored, we sent the pinnace to look for water and try if they could catch any fish.  Afterwards we sent the yawl another way to see for water.  Before night the pinnace brought on board several sorts of fruits that they found in the woods, such