220 VOYAGE IN SEARCH 



i 



fog, which had conftantly accompanied the 

 winds from the fouth-eaft. 



Our obfervation had juft placed us in latitude 

 2i 46' fouth, out longitude being 16a 46' eaft, 

 when we imagined that we discovered, between 

 the reefs, an opening, which perhaps would 

 have afforded us a palTage ; but how was it pof- 

 iible to afcertain the fact, with ftrong winds, 

 which were blowing dead on the fhore ? 



On the 25th, as foon as the wind had United 

 to the fouth, the fd^was entirely difpelled : 

 thofe winds which bring the cold into thefe lati- 

 tudes, reftored to the air, at fun-fet, the fuper- 

 abundance of water which it had kept in a ftate 

 of folution during the day; accordingly we 

 then received a few large drops of cold rain, 

 which fell very wide from each other. 



For the laft two days we had advanced 

 only a few kilometers in our furvey # of the 

 coaft, on which we had feen feveral fires, lighted 



t 

 * The word furvey is not here, nor in feveral other parts of 



thefe pages, to be underftood in its literal fenfe. To furvey a 



coaft, according to my ideas, is to take a geometrical plan of 



it, in which every place is to be afligned its true fituation. 



The reader will be convinced that fuch an operation is feldom 



practicable. In my application of the word furvey, I am 



juftified by the authority of Captain Cook and other circum 



navigators, T. 



probably 



