264 cook's SECOND VOYAGE JAN. 







longitude 139 45', the weather became fair, and the 

 wind veered to south-west. About this time we saw 

 a few small divers (as we call them) of the peterel 

 tribe, which we judged to be such as are usually seen 

 near land, especially in the bays, and on the coast of 

 New Zealand. I cannot tell what to think of these 

 birds. Had there been more of them, I should have 

 been ready enough to believe that we were at this 

 time not very far from land, as I never saw one so 

 far from known land before. Probably these few 

 had been drawn thus far by some shoal of fish, for 

 such were certainly about us, by the vast number of 

 blue peterels, albatrosses, and such other birds as 

 are usually seen in the great ocean ; all or most of 

 whom left us before night. Two or three pieces of 

 sea-weed were also seen ; but these appeared old and 

 decayed. 



At eight o'clock in the evening, being in the 

 latitude of 56 S. longitude 140 31' west, the wind 

 fixing in the western board, obliged us to steer north- 

 easterly, and laid me under the necessity of leaving 

 unexplored a space of the sea to the west, containing 

 near 40 of longitude and half that in latitude. Had 

 the wind continued favourable, I intended to have 

 run 15 or 20 degrees of longitude more to the west, 

 in the latitude we were then in, and back again to 

 the east in the latitude of 50. This route would 

 have so intersected the space above-mentioned, as 

 hardly to have left room for the bare supposition of 

 any land lying there. Indeed, as it was, we have little 

 reason to believe that there is ; but rather the con- 

 trary, from the great hollow swell we had had for 

 several days, from the W. and N. W., though the 

 wind had blown from a contrary direction great part 

 of the time ; which is a great sign we had not been 

 covered by any land between these two points. 



While we were in the high latitudes, many of our 

 people were attacked with a slight fever, occasioned 

 by colds. It happily yielded to the simplest remedies;. 



15 



