Port Famine to Falkland's Islands
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W. 2 S. distant seventy leagues; the variation was now 19° E. About seven in the evening, I thought I saw land a-head of us, but the Tamar being some leagues a-stern, I wore ship, and made an easy sail off: the next morning, at break of day, I stood in again, the wind having shifted in the night to N.W. and about four o’clock, I recovered sight of the land a-head, which had the appearance of three islands: I imagined they might be the islands of Sebald de Wert, but intending to stand between them, I found that the land which had appeared to be separated, was joined by some very low ground, which formed a deep bay. As soon as I had made this discovery, I tacked and stood out again, and at the same time saw land a great way to the southward, which I made no doubt was the same that is mentioned in the charts by the name of the New Islands. As I was hauling out of this bay, I saw a long, low shoal of rocks, stretching out for more than a league to the northward of us, and another of the same kind lying between that and what we had taken for the northermost of De Wert’s islands. This land, except the low part, which is not seen till it is approached near, consists of high, craggy, barren rocks, which in appearance very much resemble Staten Land. When I had got so near as to discover the low land, I was quite embayed, and if it had blown hard at S.W. so great a sea must have rolled in here as would have rendered it almost impossible to claw off the shore; all ships, therefore, that may hereafter navigate these parts, should avoid falling in with it. The seals and birds here are innumerable; we saw also many whales spouting about us, several of which were of an enormous size. Our latitude now was 51° 27’S., longitude 63° 54’W.; the variation was 23° 30’E. In the evening we brought to, and at day-break the next morning, stood in for the north part of the island by the coast of which
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 45, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/081.html