As the islands of Zellany and Kunashir, according to the Russian charts, were still to the southward, we were not without hopes of being able to make them, and therefore kept our head as much to the westward as the wind would permit. On the 20th, at noon, we were in latitude 43° 47ʹ, and longitude 150° 30ʹ; and steering west by south, with a moderate breeze from south-east, and probably not more than twenty-four leagues to the eastward of Zellany, when our good fortune again deserted us. For, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the wind veering round to the north-west, began to blow so strong, that we were brought under our foresail and mizen stay-sail. We had very heavy squalls, and hard rain during the next twenty-four hours; after which, the horizon clearing a little, and the weather growing moderate, we were enabled to set the topsails; but the wind still continuing to blow from the north-west, baffled all our endeavours to make the land, and obliged us at last to give up all further thoughts of discovery to the north of Japan. We submitted to this disappointment with the greater reluctance, as the accounts that are given of the inhabitants of these islands mentioned at the end of the last chapter, had excited in us the greater curiosity to visit them. In the afternoon the leach-rope of the Resolution’s fore-top-sail gave way, and split the sail. As this accident had often happened to us in Captain Cook’s life-time, he had ordered the foot and leach-ropes of the top-sails to be taken out, and larger fixed in their stead; and as these also proved unequal to the strain that was on them, it is evident that the proper proportion of strength between those ropes and the sail, is exceedingly miscalculated in our service. This day a land-bird perched on the rigging, and was taken; it was larger than a sparrow, but in other respects very like one.