Page:A voyage to New Holland - Dampier.djvu/152

 we had yet sight of the Antelope, and of the land too, till Tuesday the 6th June: and then we saw also by us an innumerable company of fowls of divers sorts; so that we looked about to see if there were not another dead whale, but saw none.

The night before, the sun set in a black cloud, which appeared just like land, and the clouds above it were gilded of a dark red colour. And on the Tuesday, as the sun drew near the horizon, the clouds were gilded very prettily to the eye, though at the same time my mind dreaded the consequences of it. When the sun was now not above 2 degrees high it entered into a dark smoky-coloured cloud that lay parallel with the horizon, from whence presently seemed to issue many dusky blackish beams. The sky was at this time covered with small hard clouds (as we call such a lie scattering about, not likely to rain) very thick one by another; and such of them as lay next to the bank of clouds at the horizon were of a pure gold colour to 3 or 4 degrees high above the bank. From these to about 10 degrees high they were redder and very bright; above them they were of a darker colour still, to about 60 or 70 degrees high, where the clouds began to be of their common colour. I took the more particular notice of all this because I have generally observed such coloured clouds to ap-