On this day ...
23 June 1770
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
Transcript of Cook's Journal
Joseph Banks's Journal
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
In Endeavour River
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The next morning, I sent a boat to haul the seine; but at noon it returned with only three fish, and yet we saw them in plenty leaping about the harbour. This day the carpenter finished the repairs that were necessary on the starboard side; and at nine o’clock in the evening, we heeled the ship the other way, and hauled her off about two feet for fear of neiping. This day almost every body had seen the animal which the pigeon-shooters had brought an account of the day before; and one of the seamen, who had been rambling in the woods, told us at his return, that he verily believed he had seen the devil: we naturally enquired in what form he had appeared, and his answer was in so singular a stile that I shall set down his own words; "He was, says John, as large as a one gallon keg, and very like it; he had horns and wings, yet he crept so slowly through the grass, that if I had not been afeard I might have touched him." This formidable apparition we afterwards discovered to have been a batt; and the batts here must be acknowledged to have a frightful appearance, for they are nearly black, and full as large as a partridge; they have indeed no horns, but the fancy of a man who thought he saw the devil might easily supply that defect.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 560 - 561, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/562.html