At day-break, in the morning, we steered W. S. W., and afterwards W. by S., which by noon brought us into the latitude of 9° 30ʹ S., longitude 229° 34ʹ W., and by our run from New Guinea, we ought to have been within sight of Weasel isles, which in the charts are laid down at the distance of twenty or twenty-five leagues from the coast of New Holland; we, however, saw nothing, and, therefore, they must have been placed erroneously; nor can this be thought strange, when it is considered that not only these islands, but the coast which bounds this sea, have been discovered and explored by different people, and at different times, and the charts upon which they are delineated, put together by others, perhaps at the distance of more than a century after the discoveries had been made; not to mention that the discoverers themselves had not all the requisites for keeping an accurate journal, of which those of the present age are possessed. We continued our course, steering W. till the evening of the 8th, when the variation of the compass, by several azimuths, was 12ʹ W., and by the amplitude 5ʹ W. At noon, on the 9th, our latitude, by observation, was 9° 46ʹ S., longitude 232° 7ʹ W. For the last two days, we had steered due W., yet, by observation, we made sixteen miles southing, six miles from noon on the 6th to noon on the 7th, and ten miles from noon on the 7th to noon on the 8th, by which it appeared that there was a current setting to the southward. At sunset, we found the variation to be 2ʹ W., and at the same time, saw an appearance of very high land bearing N. W.