348 
A VOYAGE TO 
1803. 
November. 
[At Timor. 
Mynheer Geisler, the former governor of Coepang, died a 
month before our arrival, and Mr. Viertzen at this time commanded. 
He supplied us with almost every thing our situation required, and 
endeavoured to make my time pass as pleasantly as was in his power, 
furnishing me with a house near the fort to which I took the time 
keeper and instruments to ascertain a new rate and error ; but my 
anxious desire to reach England, and the apprehension of being met 
by the north-west monsoon before passing Java, induced me to leave 
him as soon as we could be ready to sail, which was on the fourth 
day. The schooner had continued to be very leaky whenever the 
wind caused her to lie over on the side, and one of the pumps had 
nearly become useless ; I should have risked staying two or three 
days longer, had Coepang furnished the means of fresh boring and 
fitting the pumps, or if pitch could have been procured to pay the 
seams in the upper works after they were caulked ; but no assistance 
in this way could be obtained ; we however got a leak stopped in the 
bow, and the vessel was afterwards tight so long as she remained 
at anchor. 
Mr. Viertzen informed me that captain Baudin had arrived at 
Coepang near a month after I had left it in the Investigator, and had 
sailed early in June for the Gulph of Carpentaria ; and I afterwards 
learned, that being delayed by calms and opposed by south-east 
"winds, he had not reached Cape Arnhem when his people and himself 
began to be sickly ; and fearing that the north-west monsoon might 
return before his examination was finished, and keep him in the 
Gulph beyond the extent of his provisions, he abandoned the voyage 
and steered for Mauritius in his way to Europe. 
The situation of Fort Concordia is considered to be io° 
south and 123 0 35' 46" east, according to the observations made in 
the Investigator (see p. 258). I took altitudes with a sextant and 
artificial horizon on the nth, 12th, 13th, and 14th, for the rate of 
the time keeper, which, with its error from mean Greenwich time 
at noon there on the last day of observation, was found to be as under: 
Earnshaw’s No. 520, slow o b 32' 59", 91 and losing 36", 74 per day. 
