A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
Early in the morning, we stood in with the land, seven leagues to the
westward of Doubtless Bay, the bottom of which is not far distant from
the bottom of another large bay, which the shore forms at this place,
being separated only by a low neck of land, which juts out into a
peninsula that I have called _Knuckle Point_. About the middle of this
Bay, which we called _Sandy Bay_, is a high mountain, standing upon a
distant shore, to which I gave the name of _Mount Camel_. The latitude
here is 84° 51' S. and longitude 186° 50'. We had twenty-four and
twenty-five fathom water, with a good bottom; but there seems to be
nothing in this bay that can induce a ship to put into it; for the land
about it is utterly barren and desolate, and, except Mount Camel, the
situation is low: The soil appears to be nothing but white sand, thrown
up in low irregular hills and narrow ridges, lying parallel with the
shore. But barren and desolate as this place is, it is not without
inhabitants: We saw one village on the west side of Mount Camel, and
another on the east side: We saw also five canoes full of people, who
pulled after the ship, but could not come up with us. At nine o'clock,
we tacked and stood to the northward; and at noon, the Cavalles bore
S.E. by E. distant thirteen leagues; the north extremity of the land in
sight, making like an island, bore N.W. 1/4 N. distant nine leagues; and
Mount Camel bore S.W. by S. distance six leagues.
The wind being contrary, we kept plying northward till five o'clock in
the evening of the 12th, when, having made very little way, we tacked
and stood to the N.E. being two leagues to the northward of Mount Camel,
and about a mile and a half from the shore, in which situation we had
two-and-twenty fathom water.
At ten, it began to blow and rain, which brought us under double-reefed
topsails; at twelve we tacked and stood to the westward till seven the
next morning, when we tacked and stood again to the N.E. being about a
mile to windward of the place where we tacked last night. Soon after it
blew very hard at N.N.W. with heavy squalls and much rain, which brought
us under our courses, and split the maintop-sail; so that we were
obliged to unbend it and bend another: At ten it became more moderate,
and we set the top-sails, double-reefed. At noon, having strong gales
and heavy weather, we tacked and stood to the westward, and had no land
in sight for the first time since we had been upon this coast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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