Page:Colnett - Voyage to the South Pacific (IA cihm 33242).djvu/116

 the permaceti whales, as well as others, of a different pecies, accompanied us. At five o'clock in the evening, when we were within even or eight miles of the hore, it being a moon-light night, I ent the chief mate to fih, ound for an anchoring place, and, if poible, to land, in order to dicover what this iland produced. We tood on and off during the whole night, and, at break of day, found that the current had et us coniderably to the Southward and Wetward. In the morning, we paed great quantities of pumice tone, and the ea was covered with mall hrimps, the common food of the black whale. It being calm, or light winds all night, and the firt part of the day, we did not get in with the hore, till two o'clock in the afternoon. We ounded within five miles of it, but found no bottom, with one hundred and fifty fathoms of line.

In the evening, the boat returned, when the mate informed me, that he had ounded off the lee-ide of the ile, and could not find a place of afety for the hip to lay in, or a landing for the boat, except in a mall cove, near the South point. They had caught a ufficient quantity of fih for all hands, coniting of a kind of cod, napper, and ilver-fih; and they might have taken more, but the harks, which were very numerous, ran away with the hooks. On the iland they