A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the; Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea; and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the; Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea; and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
we wore, and brought to the northward. The gale still continued, if
possible, with increasing violence, and the rain poured down in
torrents, so that we were in a manner immersed in water, and expected
every moment to be among the breakers. The long-wished-for day at length
broke, but the weather was still so thick that no land was to be seen,
though we knew it could not be far distant, till after six, when we saw
the south shore at about the distance of two miles; and soon after, to
our great satisfaction, we saw the Tamar: At this time Cape Monday bore
S.E. distant about four miles, and the violence of the gale not abating,
we bore away. About seven, both ships came to an anchor in the bay which
lies to the eastward of Cape Monday, notwithstanding the sea that rolled
in; for we were glad to get anchorage any where[32] We had now been
twice within four leagues of Tuesday's Bay, at the western entrance of
the streight, and had been twice driven back ten or twelve leagues by
such storms as we had now just experienced. When the season is so far
advanced as it was when we attempted the passage of this streight, it is
a most difficult and dangerous undertaking, as it blows a hurricane
incessantly night and day, and the rain is as violent and constant as
the wind, with such fogs as often render it impossible to discover any
object at the distance of twice the ship's length. This day our best
bower cable being quite rubbed to pieces, we cut it into junk, and bent
a new one, which we rounded with old rigging, eight fathom from the
anchor.
[Footnote 32: "The straits are here four or five leagues over, and the
mountains seem to be ten times as high as the mast-head of our ships;
but not much covered with snow; or encompassed with trees."]
In the afternoon of the day following, the Tamar parted a new best
bower cable, it being cut by the rock, and drove over to the east side
of the bay, where she was brought up at a very little distance from some
rocks, against which she must otherwise have been dashed to pieces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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