With light land breezes from W. by N. for a few hours in a morning, and sea breezes from S.S.W. and S. we advanced to the westward but slowly. At noon on the 14th, we were between six and seven leagues from the land, which extended from N. by E. to S. 78 W.; we still saw smoke in many places by day, and fire by night, both upon the low land and the mountains beyond it. We continued steering along the shore, till the morning of the 15th, the land still appearing hilly, but not so high as it had been: the hills in general came quite down to the sea, and where they did not, we saw instead of flats and mangrove land, immense groves of cocoa-nut trees, reaching about a mile up from the beach: there the plantations and houses commenced, and appeared to be innumerable. The houses were shaded by groves of the fan palm, or borassus, and the plantations, which were inclosed by a fence, reached almost to the tops of the highest hills. We saw however neither people nor cattle, though our glasses were continually employed, at which we were not a little surprised.

Voyaging Accounts