We had scarcely seen a bird, since our losing sight of Tahoora, till the 18th in the afternoon, when, being in the latitude of 21° 12ʹ, and the longitude of 194° 45ʹ, the appearance of a great many boobies, and some man-of-war birds, made us keep a sharp look-out for land. Toward evening, the wind lessened, and the north-east swell, which, on the 16th and 17th, had been so heavy as to make the ships labour exceedingly, was much abated. The next day, we saw no appearance of land; and at noon, we steered a point more to the southward, viz. west by south, in the hopes of finding the trade-winds (which blew almost invariably from the east by north) fresher as we advanced within the tropic. It is somewhat singular, that though we saw no birds in the forenoon, yet toward evening we had again a number of boobies and man-of-war birds about us. This seemed to indicate, that we had passed the land from whence the former flights had come, and that we were approaching some other low island. The wind continued very moderate, with fine weather, till the 23d, when it freshened from the north-east by east, and increased to a strong gale, which split some of our old sails, and made the running rigging very frequently give way. This gale lasted twelve hours; it then became more moderate, and continued so, till the 25th at noon, when we entirely lost it, and had only a very light air. On the 26th in the morning, we thought we saw land to the west south-west, but, after running about sixteen leagues in that direction, we found our mistake; and night coming on, we again steered west. Our latitude, at this time, was 19° 45ʹ, which was the greatest southing we made in this run; our longitude was 183°, and variation 12° 45ʹ E. We continued in this course, with little alteration in the wind, till the 29th, when it shifted to the south-east and south south-east, and, for a few hours in the night, it was in the west; the weather being dark and cloudy, with much rain. We had met, for some days past, several turtles, one of which was the smallest I ever saw, not exceeding three inches in length. We were also accompanied by man-of-war birds, and boobies of an unusual kind, being quite white (except the tip of the wing, which was black), and easily mistaken, at first sight, for gannets.