APR. 1770 AUSTRALIA WEATHER WATERSPOUTS 261 



of Esox sconiboides leaping out of the water in a very extra- 

 ordinary manner, pursued by a large fish, which I saw but 

 could not strike, though I did two of the former. In the 

 evening saw several fish much resembling bonitos. 



The weather we have had for these nine days past, and 

 the things we have seen upon the sea, are so extraordinary 

 that I cannot help recapitulating a little. The weather, in 

 the first place, which till the fifth was cool, or rather cold, 

 became at once troublesomely hot, bringing with it a mouldy 

 dampness such as we experienced between the tropics : the 

 thermometer, although it showed a considerable difference 

 in the degree of heat, was not nearly so sensible of it as our 

 bodies, which I believe is generally the case when a damp 

 air accompanies warmth. During the continuance of this 

 weather the inhabitants of the tropical seas appeared : 

 the tropic bird, flying fish, and Medusa porpita are animals 

 very rarely seen out of the influence of trade winds. 

 Several others also I have never before seen in so high a 

 latitude, and never before in such perfection as now, except 

 between the tropics. All these uncommon appearances I 

 myself can find no other method of accounting for than the 

 uncommon length of time that the wind had remained in 

 the eastern quarter before this, which possibly had all that 

 time blown home from the trade wind ; and at the same 

 time, as it kept the sea in a quiet and still state, had 

 brought with it the produce of the climate from which it 

 came. 



~L9th. With the first daylight this morning the land 1 

 was seen ; it made in sloping hills covered in part with 

 trees or bushes, but interspersed with large tracts of sand. 

 At noon we were sailing along shore, five or six leagues 

 from it, with a brisk breeze of wind and cloudy unsettled 

 weather, when we were called upon deck to see three water- 

 spouts which made their appearance at the same time in 

 different places, but all between us and the land. Two, 



1 To the southward of Cape Howe. The most southerly land seen was by 

 Captain Cook called Point Hicks. It is not a point, but a hill, still called 

 Point Hicks Hill (Wharton's Cook, p. 237, note). 



