368 cook's voyage to nov. 



we supposed we had made a course of nine leagues 

 to the south-west, we had in reality been carried 

 eight leagues from the position we left, in a direction 

 diametrically opposite ; which made, on the whole, 

 in that short space of time, a difference, in our reck- 

 oning, of seventeen leagues. From this error, we 

 calculated, that the current had set to the north-east 

 by north, at the rate of at least five miles an hour. 

 Our longitude at this time was 141° 16'. 



The weather having now the same threatening 

 appearance as on the 29th of October, which was 

 followed by so sudden and severe a gale, and the 

 wind continuing at south south-east, it was thought 

 prudent to leave the shore, and stand off to the east- 

 ward, to prevent our being entangled with the land. 

 Nor were we wrong in our prognostications; for it 

 soon afterward began, and continued till next day, 

 to blow a heavy gale, accompanied with hazy and 

 rainy weather. In the morning of the 3d, we found 

 ourselves, by our reckoning, upward of fifty leagues 

 from the land; which circumstance, together with 

 the very extraordinary effect of currents we had 

 before experienced, the late season of the year, the 

 unsettled state of the weather, and the little likeli- 

 hood of any change for the better, made Captain 

 Gore resolve to leave Japan altogether, and prosecute 

 our 'voyage to China; hoping, that as the track he 

 meant to pursue had never yet been explored, he 

 should be able to make amends, by some new dis- 

 covery, for the disappointments we had met with on 

 this coast. 



If the reader should be of opinion that we quitted 

 this object too hastily, in addition to the facts already 

 stated, it ought to be remarked, Kaempfer describes 

 the coast of Japan as the most dangerous in the whole 

 world*; that it would have been equally dangerous, 

 in case of distress, to run into anv of their harbours, 



* See Kaempfer's Hist, of Japan, vol. i. p. 92, 93, 94. and 102. 



