262 NEW ZEALAND TO AUSTRALIA CHAP, xi 



which were very distant, soon disappeared ; but the third, 

 which was about a league from us, lasted fully a quarter of 

 an hour. It was a column which appeared of the thickness 

 of a mast or a middling tree, and reached down from a 

 smoke-coloured cloud about two-thirds of the way to the 

 surface of the sea. Under it the sea appeared to be much 

 troubled for a considerable space, and from the whole of 

 that space arose a dark-coloured thick mist reaching to the 

 bottom of the pipe, where it was at its greatest distance 

 from the water. The pipe itself was perfectly transparent, 

 and much resembled a tube of glass or a column of water, 

 if such a thing could be supposed to be suspended in the 

 air : it very frequently contracted and dilated, lengthened 

 and shortened itself, and that by very quick motions. It 

 very seldom remained in a perpendicular direction, but 

 generally inclined either one way or the other in a curve, as 

 a light body acted upon by the wind is observed to do. 

 During the whole time that it lasted, smaller ones seemed 

 to attempt to form in its neighbourhood ; at last one almost 

 as thick as a rope formed close by it, and became longer 

 than the old one, which at that time was in its shortest 

 state ; upon this they joined together in an instant, and 

 gradually contracting into the cloud, disappeared. 



22nd. We stood in with the land, near enough to dis- 

 cern five people, who appeared through our glasses to be 

 enormously black : so far did the prejudices which we had 

 built on Dampier's account influence us, that we fancied we 

 could see their colour when we could scarce distinguish 

 whether or not they were men. 



Since we have been on the coast, we have not observed 

 those large fires which we so frequently saw in the islands 

 and New Zealand, made by the natives in order to clear the 

 ground for cultivation : we thence concluded not much in 

 favour of our future friends. It has long been an obser- 

 vation among us, that the air in this southern hemisphere 

 was much clearer than in our northern : these last few days 

 at least it has appeared remarkably so. 



2 3rd. Took with the dipping-net Cancer erythrophthalmus, 



