[Footnote 102: This isle, or rock, was the single point about which Captain Cook had received the least information at Teneriffe; and we may observe how sagacious he was in tracing it. What he could only speak of as probable, a comparison of his chart with that lately published by Kerguelen, proves to be certain; and if he had even read and copied what his predecessor in the discovery says of it, he could scarcely have varied his account of its shape. Kerguelen's words are, "Isle de Reunion, qui n'est qu'une Roche, nous servoit de Rendezvous, ou de point de ralliement; et ressemble à un coin de mire."--D.] At eleven o'clock the weather began to clear up, and we immediately tacked, and steered in for the land. At noon, we had a pretty good observation, which enabled us to determine the latitude of Bligh's Cap, which is the northernmost island, to be 48° 29' S., and its longitude 68° 40' E.'[103] We passed it at three o'clock, standing to the S.S.E., with a fresh gale at W. [Footnote 103: The French and English agree very nearly (as might be expected) in their accounts of the latitude of this island; but the observations by which they fix its longitude vary considerably. The pilot at Teneriffe made it only 64° 57' E. from Paris, which is about 67° 16' E. from London; or 1° 24' more westerly than Captain Cook's observations fix it. Monsieur de Pagès says it is 66° 47' E. from Paris, that is, 69° 6' E. from London, or twenty-six miles more easterly than it is placed by Captain Cook. Kerguelen himself only says that it is about 68° of E. longitude, _par_ 68° _de longitude_.--D.] Soon after we saw the land, of which we had a faint view in the morning; and at four o'clock it extended from S.E. 1/2 E., to S.W. by S., distant about four miles. The left extreme, which I judged to be the northern point of this land, called, in the French chart of the southern hemisphere, Cape St Louis,[104] terminated in a perpendicular rock of a considerable height; and the right one (near which is a detached rock) in a high indented point.[105] From this point the coast seemed to turn short round to the southward, for we could see no land to the westward of the direction in which it now bore to us, but the islands we had observed in the morning; the most southerly[106] of them lying nearly W. from the point, about two or three leagues distant.