Holland, but never that I recollect at any considerable distance from the land. In the evening a small bird of the noddy (Sterna) kind hovered about the ship, and at night settled on the rigging, where it was taken, and proved exactly the same bird as Dampier has described, and given a rude figure of, under the name of a noddy from New Holland (see his Voyages, vol. iii. p. 98, table of birds, Fig. 5).
28th. Still standing to the northward, the water shoaling regularly; vast quantities of the little substances mentioned yesterday floating upon the water in large lines, a mile or more long, and fifty or a hundred yards wide, all swimming either immediately upon the surface of the water, or not many inches below it. The seamen, who were now convinced that it was not as they had thought the spawn of fish, began to call it sea-sawdust, a name certainly not ill adapted to its appearance. One of them, a Portuguese, who came on board the ship at Rio de Janeiro, told me that at St. Salvador on the coast of Brazil, where the Portuguese have a whale fishery, he had often seen vast quantities of it taken out of the stomachs of whales or grampuses.
29th. During the whole night our soundings were very irregular, but never less than seven fathoms, and never so shoal for any time. In the morning the land[1] was seen from the deck. It was uncommonly low, but very thickly covered with wood. At eight o'clock it was not more than two leagues from us, but the water had gradually shoaled since morn to five fathoms, and was at this time as muddy as the river Thames, so that it was not thought prudent to go any nearer at present. We accordingly stood along shore, seeing fires and large groves of cocoanut trees, in the neighbourhood of which we supposed the Indian villages to be situated.
1st September. Distant as the land was, a very fragrant smell came off from it early in the morning, with the little breeze that blew right off shore. It resembled much the smell of gum Benjamin. As the sun gathered power it died
- ↑ Coast of New Guinea, near Cape Valsche.
