SEPT. 1770 OFF NEW GUINEA 325 



Holland, but never that I recollect at any considerable dis- 

 tance from the land. In the evening a small bird of the 

 noddy (Sterna) kind hovered about the ship, and at night 

 settled on the rigging, where it was taken, and proved 

 exactly the same bird as Dampier has described, and given 

 a rude figure of, under the name of a noddy from New 

 Holland (see his Voyages, vol. iii. p. 98, table of birds, 

 Fig. 5). 



28th. Still standing to the northward, the water shoal- 

 ing regularly ; vast quantities of the little substances men- 

 tioned yesterday floating upon the water in large lines, a 

 mile or more long, and fifty or a hundred yards wide, all 

 swimming either immediately upon the surface of the 

 water, or not many inches below it. The seamen, who 

 were now convinced that it was not as they had thought 

 the spawn of fish, began to call it sea-sawdust, a name 

 certainly not ill adapted to its appearance. One of them, 

 a Portuguese, who came on board the ship at Eio de 

 Janeiro, told me that at St. Salvador on the coast of Brazil, 

 where the Portuguese have a whale fishery, he had often 

 seen vast quantities of it taken out of the stomachs of whales 

 or grampuses. 



29th. During the whole night our soundings were very 

 irregular, but never less than seven fathoms, and never 

 so shoal for any time. In the morning the land l was seen 

 from the deck. It was uncommonly low, but very thickly 

 covered with wood. At eight o'clock it was not more than 

 two leagues from us, but the water had gradually shoaled 

 since morn to five fathoms, and was at this time as muddy as 

 the river Thames, so that it was not thought prudent to go any 

 nearer at present. We accordingly stood along shore, seeing 

 fires and large groves of cocoanut trees, in the neighbour- 

 hood of which we supposed the Indian villages to be situated. 



1st September. Distant as the land was, a very fragrant 

 smell came off from it early in the morning, with the little 

 breeze that blew right off shore. It resembled much the 

 smell of gum Benjamin. As the sun gathered power it died 



1 Coast of New Guinea, near Cape Valsche. 



