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 Rio 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’ 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. 
