Every thing being settled at St Sebastian, Roggewein set sail towards the S.W. and falling in with a desert island about three leagues from the coast, he set on shore the swabber who had attempted to murder the cook, pursuant to his sentence, as formerly related. Leaving the coast of Brazil, the commodore proposed to have visited an island called Aukes Magdeland, after the name of its supposed discoverer, who is said to have seen a light on that island about an hundred years before, but did not go on shore. This island was said to be situated in the latitude of 30° S. and as being in the route of the navigation towards the South Sea, and in a good climate, he proposed to have settled a colony there for the service of such ships as might afterwards be bound for the _Southern Indies_, the object he was now in search of, where they might be supplied with wood, water, and other refreshments. But after much pains, he could neither discover that nor any other island in or near the latitude of 30° S. He therefore altered his coarse, steering for those called the _New Islands_ by the Dutch, and the _Islands of St Lewis_, by a French privateer who first discovered them. Keeping always within forty or fifty leagues of the American coast, the squadron prosecuted its course very happily, having always the advantage of the land and sea-breezes; whereas, if it had kept farther from land, it would infallibly have fallen in with the western trade-wind. On the 21st December, being in lat. 40°. S. they were assailed by a hurricane, attended with thunder and lightning, during which storm the Tienhoven parted company, and did not rejoin till three months afterwards. The extreme violence of this hurricane only lasted about four hours, during which they every moment expected to have been swallowed up by the waves, which ran mountain-high. These hurricanes are extremely dangerous, and are far more frequent in the American seas than in the East Indies. They usually happen at that season of the year when the west monsoon reigns, which is from the 20th July to the 15th October, for which reason ships usually remain then in port till they think the danger is over. Yet as storms of this kind are not exactly periodical, ships that trust to such calculations are often caught, as there are some years in which there are no hurricanes, and others in which they are more frequent and violent, and at unusual periods. The ordinary, or at least the surest sign of an approaching hurricane, is very fair weather, and so dead a calm that not even a wrinkle is to be seen on the surface of the sea. A very dark cloud is then seen to rise in the air, not larger than a man's hand, and in a very little time the whole sky becomes overcast. The wind then begins to blow from the west, and in a short space of time, whirls round the compass, swelling the sea to a dreadful height; and as the wind blows now on one side and then on the other, the contrary waves beat so