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
On the 26th we saw two large birds about the ship, which were all black,
except the neck and the beak, which were white; they had long wings, and
long feathers in their tails, yet we observed that they flew heavily,
and therefore imagined that they were of a species which did not usually
fly far from the shore. I had flattered myself, that, before we had run
six degrees to the northward of Masafuero, we should have found a
settled trade-wind to the S.E. but the winds still continued to the
north, though we had a mountainous swell, from the S.W. Our latitude was
now 16° 55' S. longitude 127° 55' W. and here the needle, at this time,
had no variation.
On the 28th we saw two fine large birds about the ship, one of which was
brown and white, and the other black and white; they wanted much to
settle upon the yards, but the working of the ship frighted them.
On the 31st the wind shifted from N. by W. to N.W. by W. and the number
of birds that were now about the ship was very great; from these
circumstances, and our having lost the great south-west swell, I
imagined some land to be near, and we looked out for it with great
diligence, for our people began now to fall down with the scurvy very
fast.
We saw no land, however, till one o'clock in the morning of Friday the
7th of June, when we were in latitude 14° 5' S. longitude 144° 58' W.
and observed the variation to be 4° 30' E. After making the land, I
hauled upon a wind under an easy sail till the morning, and then a low
small island bore from us W.S.W. at the distance of about two leagues.
In a very short time we saw another island to windward of us, bearing
E.S.E. distant between three and four leagues: This appeared to be much
larger than that which we first discovered, and we must have passed very
near it in the night.
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