This shoal is laid down in our drafts not above sixteen or twenty leagues from New Holland; but we did runne afterwards sixty leagues due south before we fell in with it: and I am very confident that no part of New Holland hereabouts lyes so far northerly by forty leagues as it is laid down in our drafts. For if New Holland were laid down true, we must of necessity have been driven near forty leagues to the westward of our course; but this is very improbable, that the current should set so strong to the westward, seeing that we had such a constant westerly wind. I grant that when the monsoon shifts first, the current does not presently shift, but runs afterwards near a month; but the monsoon had been shifted at least two months now. But of the monsoons and other winds, and of the currents, elsewhere, in their proper place. As to these here, I do rather believe that the land is not laid down true, than that the current deceived us; for it was more probable we should have been deceived before we met with the shoal than afterward: for on the coast of New Holland we found the tides keeping their constant course, the flood running N. by E. and the ebb S. by W. The 4th day of January, 1688, we fell in with the land of New Holland, in the latitude of 16° 50´, having, as I said before, made our course due south from the shoal that we past by the 31st day of December. We ran in close by it, and finding no convenient anchorage, because it lies open to the N.W., we ran along shore to the eastward, steering N.E. by E., for so the land lies. We steered thus about twelve leagues; and then came to a point of land, from whence the land trends east and southerly for ten or twelve leagues: but how afterwards I know not. About three leagues to the eastward of this point there is a pretty deep bay, with abundance of islands in it, and a very good place to anchor in or to hale ashore. About a league to the eastward of that point we anchored January the 5th, 1688, two miles from the shore, in twenty-nine fathom, good hard sand and clean ground. New Holland is a very large tract of land. It is not yet determined whether it is an island or a main continent; but I am certain that it joyns neither to Asia, Africa, nor America. This part of it that we saw is all low even land, with sandy banks against the sea, only the points are rocky, and so are some of the islands in this bay.