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. 
23rd. Took with the dipping-net Cancer erythrophthalmus, 
