Page:Colnett - Voyage to the South Pacific (IA cihm 33242).djvu/120

 as many man-of-war hawks as could find a reting place, and a few eals.

Having found the Iles Socoro, Santo Berto, and Rocks Partida, by my manucript chart, I had every reaonable expectation of eeing alo the Ile St. Thomas, which was dicovered by a Spaniard, Diego Hurtado, in the year 1533, and by him placed in Latitude 21° 30′; and it was viited afterwards by Gaeten Betrad, in the year 1542, who places it fifteen miles more to the Northward, than Hurtado; and by all the information I had collected, it lay a mall ditance to the Wetward and Northward of Socoro,

I haped my coure for the ituation in which it was placed in my chart; but when I had run the ditance, I did not perceive any thing like land, nor any igns of my being near it, except the birds and eals which we frequently aw. I did not, however, entertain the leat doubt of its exitence, but concluded that I had mied it by ailing too much in a right line from Rocka Partida. The weather being too unfavorable for me to return to the coat of Mexico, I dicontinued my earch, for the preent, after the Ile St. Thomas; and, from the quantity of whales frequenting the coat of California, as mentioned by Mr. Dalrymple, in his hitory of that country, as well as from the number een by myelf in my preceding voyage,