mas, after the labours of watering, and cutting grass, one of them found a quart bottle, fastened with some wire to a projecting rock on the north side of the harbour; and in this bottle was a piece of parchment, with the following inscription:—
Ludovico XV Galliarum
rege, et d. [domino] de Boynes
regi a Secretis ad res
maritimas annis 1772 et
1773.
For this inscription, Captain Cook was at a loss to account, not knowing that Kerguelen had been here in 1773, and that his people had left the bottle and inscription in this harbour, which they named Baie de l'Oiseau. Our navigator wrote on the other side of the parchment;
Naves Resolution
et Discovery
de Rege Magne Britanniæ,
Decembris 1776.
He then put it again into the bottle, with a silver. twopence of 1772, and giving the bottle a leaden cap, placed it in a pile of stones, which he erected near where it was found. The south point of the barbour terminated in a high perforated rock. Few fish were found here, so that birds were almost the only fresh provisions to be had.
On the 29th, the ships sailed out of Christmas Harbour, and proceeded along the coast in a S.E direction. Several capes and bays were discovered and named; the land was found to be much indented, and towards evening, the ships, after making their way among dangerous shoals and
