17?0. ROUND THE WORLD. 248 



land we saw might be some other island, but the pre- 

 sumption to the contrary is very strong, for if Timor 

 Laut had lain where it is placed in the charts, we 

 must have seen it there. We were now in latitude 

 9 37' S. ; longitude, by an observation of the sun 

 and moon, 233 54' W. ; we were the day before in 

 233* 27' ; the difference is 27', exactly the same that 

 was given by the log : this, however, is a degree of 

 accuracy in observation that is seldom to be expected. 

 In the afternoon, we stood in shore till eight in the 

 evening, when we tacked and stood off, being at the 

 distance of about three leagues from the land, which 

 at sun-set extended from S. W. - W. to N. E. : at 

 this time we sounded, and had no ground with 140 

 fathom. At midnight, having but little wind, we 

 tacked and stood in, and at noon the next day, our 

 latitude, by observation, was 9 36' S. This day, 

 we saw smoke on shore in several places, and had 

 seen many fires during the night. The land ap- 

 peared to be very high, rising in gradual slopes one 

 above another : the hills were in general covered 

 with thick woods, but among them we could distin- 

 guish naked spots of a considerable extent, which 

 had the appearance of having been cleared by art. 

 At five o'clock in the afternoon, we were within a 

 mile and a half of the shore, in sixteen fathom water, 

 and abreast of a small inlet into the low land, which 

 lies in latitude 9 34' S., and probably is the same 

 that Dampier entered with his boat, for it did not 

 seem to have sufficient depth of water for a ship. 

 The land here answered well to the description that 

 he has given of it : close to the beach, it was covered 

 with high spiry trees, which he mentions as having 

 the appearance of pines ; behind these there seemed 

 to be salt-water creeks, and many mangroves, inter- 

 spersed however with cocoa-nut trees : the flat land 

 at the beach appeared in some places to extend 

 inward two or three miles before the rise of the first 

 hill - 9 in this part, however, we saw no appearance 



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