SECOND VOYAGE 211 



and as I found we were in a condition to remain in it another year, I 

 resolved to do it, and accordingly stood away to the north and 

 searched in vain for Juan Fernandez Land. I was more successful 

 with Easter Island, where I made a short stay, and next visited She 

 Marquesas ; from the Marquesas I proceeded to Otaheite and the 

 Society Isles, where we were received with an hospitality altogether 

 unknown among more civilized nations. These good people supplied 

 all our wants with a liberal and full hand, and I found it necessary 

 to spend six weeks with them. I left these isles on the 4th of June 

 proceeded to the west, touched at Rotterdam, stayed two or chree 

 days and then continued our route for Terra del Espirette Santo of 

 Quiros, which we made the 16th of July. I found this land to be 

 composed of a large group of isles (many of them never seen by any 

 European before) lying between the latitude of 14 and 20, and 

 nearly under the meridian of 168 east. The exploring these isles 

 finished all I had intended to do within the tropic, accordingly I 

 hauled to the south intending to touch at New Zealand, but on ^he 

 4th of September, in the latitude of 20, I fell in with a large country, 

 which I called New Caledonia. I coasted the N.E. coast of this 

 country, and partly determined the extent of the S. W. I found the 

 whole so encompassed with the shoals, that the risk we ran in explor- 

 ing it was very great. We were at last blown off the coast, and it was 

 now time for us to return to the south. I was obliged to leave it 

 unfinished, and to continue our route to Queen Charlotte's Sound, 

 where we arrived on the 6th of October. I remained here refitting 

 the sloop and refreshing my people till the 9th of November, when I 

 put to sea and proceeded directly for Terra del Fuego, but over such 

 parts of the sea as I had not visited before. I chose to make the 

 west entrance of the Straits of Magellan, that I might have it in my 

 power to explore the S. W. and south coast of Terra del Fuego, which 

 was accordingly done as well as that of Staten Land. This last 

 coast I left on the 3rd of January last (1775), and on the 14th, in the 

 ^-latitude of 54, longitude 38 west, we discovered a coast which, from 

 the immense quantity of snow upon it, and the vast height of the 

 mountains, we judged to belong to a great continent, but we found it 

 to be an isle, of no more than 70 or 80 leagues in circuit. After 

 leaving this land, I steered to S.E., and in 59 discovered another, 

 exceeding high and mountainous, and so buried in everlasting snow, 

 that it was necessary to be pretty near the shore to be satisfied that 

 the foundation was not of the same composition. I coasted this land 

 to the north, and found it to terminate in isles in that direction. 

 These isles carried us insensibly from the coast which we could not 

 afterwards regain, so that I was obliged to leave it without being 

 able to determine whether it belonged to a continent extending to the 

 to the south, or was only a group of isles. Our thus meeting with 

 land gave me reason to believe there was such a tend as Capo Circum- 

 cision, so that I quitted this horrid southern coast with less regret. 

 But our second search for Cape Circumcision was attended with no 

 better success than the first, and served only to assure us that no such 

 land existed. At length, after having made the circuit of the globe 

 and nothing more remained to be done, the season of the year, and 

 other circumstances, unnecessary I presume to mention, determined 

 me to steer for the Cape of Good Hope, where I arrived on the date 

 hereof (22nd March, 1775), and found Ceres, Captain Newte, bound 



