and pursuing his voyage at some distance from the shore, he observed, on the 22nd, a lofty promontory, which he named Cape Coronation. Another beyond it, seen next day, he called Queen Charlotte's Foreland: it proved to be the most easterly point of the main land. Beyond this foreland, many low isles and breakers were seen; which made it necessary to proceed with caution. The largest and most easterly isle in that quarter, on which there was a hill, was named the Isle of Pines, as many tall pine-trees were growing on it. Such pines were observed in great numbers about Cape Coronation, and in other parts of the coast, and had given rise to curious speculations. The philosophers on board maintained, that they were clusters of basaltic columns, the Giant's Causeway of New Caledonia; and having in their heads, it seems, the notions of a great central fire, lately broached by Buffon, they connected with this fire the smoke that arose, in considerable quantities, from among the pines; although the Captain reminded them, that no smoke was seen there in the morning, and that their supposed great fire went out at night: the smoke having doubtless proceeded from the fires in the huts, erected in the woods.
Having sailed round the Isle of Pines, and advanced toward the west on the other side of it, the Resolution was again in a perilous situation, among rocks and shoals; and the night of the 28th was spent in much anxiety and fear. The return of daylight on the 29th, shewed that there was good cause for apprehension, the breakers having been very near the ship all night. "We owed our safety," says the Captain, "to the interposition of Providence, a good look-out, and the very brisk
