further off the land, in the hope of getting them more steady. 1803.
March.
Friday 18.Our soundings gradually increased until the 18th, when the depth was 150 fathoms in latitude 9° 47′ and longitude 130° 17′; at midnight we had no ground at 160, but next morningSaturday 19. the coral bottom was seen under the ship, and we tacked until a boat was sent a-head; from 7 fathoms on the bank, the soundings in steering after the boat increased to 9, 10, 13, and suddenly to 92 fathoms.
This small bank appeared to be nearly circular, and about four miles round; it lies in latitude 9° 56′, longitude 129° 28′, and as I judge, about twenty-five leagues from the western extremity of the northern Van Diemen's Land. In some of the old charts there are shoals marked to a considerable distance from that cape; and it seems not improbable, that a chain of reefs may extend as far out as the situation of this bank. We afterwards had soundings at irregular depths, from 30 to 100 fathoms, until the evening of the 26th,Saturday 26.
(Atlas,
Pl. XVI.) in 10° 38′ south and 126° 30′ east; in which situation they were lost.
The winds had hung so much in the south-west, and retarded our passage as well as driven us near to the island Timor, that I judged it advisable to obtain refreshments there for my ship's company; under the apprehension that, as the winter season was fast advancing on the south coast of Terra Australis, the bad state of the ship might cause more labour at the pumps than our present strength was capable of exerting. Some of the smaller articles of sea provision, such as peas, rice, and sugar, which formed a principal part of our little comforts, were also become deficient, in consequence of losses sustained from the heat and moisture of the climate, and leakiness of the ship's upper works; and these I was anxious to replenish.
Coepang is a Dutch settlement at the south-west end of Timor; and the determination to put in there being made, I revolved in my mind the possibility of afterwards returning to the examination of the north and north-west coasts of Terra Australis, during the winter six months, and taking the following summer to pass the higher latitudes