182 cook's first voyage august, 



broke over them ; sometimes driving towards them 

 even while our anchors were out, and knowing that 

 if by any accident, to which an almost continual 

 tempest exposed us, they should not hold, we must 

 in a few minutes inevitably perish. But now, after 

 having sailed no less than three hundred and sixty 

 leagues, without once having a man out of the chains 

 heaving the lead, even for a minute, which perhaps 

 never happened to any other vessel, we found our- 

 selves in an open sea, with deep water ; and enjoyed 

 a flow of spirits, which was equally owing to our late 

 dangers and our present security : yet the very 

 waves, which by their swell convinced us that we had 

 no rocks or shoals to fear, convinced us also that we 

 could not safely put the same confidence in our 

 vessel as before she had struck ; for the blows she 

 received from them so widened her leaks, that she 

 admitted no less than nine inches' water an hour, 

 which, considering the state of our pumps, and the 

 navigation that was still before us, would have been a 

 subject of more serious consideration to people 

 whose danger had not so lately been so much more 

 imminent. 



The passage or channel, through which we passed 

 into the open sea beyond the reef, lies in latitude 14 

 3% S., and may always be known by the three high 

 islands within it, which I have called the Islands of 

 DiPcECTion, because by these a stranger may find a 

 safe passage through the reef quite to the main. The 

 channel lies from Lizard Island N. E. ^ N., distant 

 three leagues, and is about one third of a mile broad, 

 and not more in length. Lizard Island, which is, as I 

 have before observed, the largest and the northernmost 

 of the three, affords safe anchorage under the north- 

 west side, fresh water, and wood for fuel. The low 

 islands and shoals also which lie between it and the 

 main abound with turtle and fish, which may proba- 

 bly be caught in all seasons of the year, except when 

 the weather is very tempestuous ; so that, all things 



