Page:Colnett - Voyage to the South Pacific (IA cihm 33242).djvu/39

 calm and continued o till midnight; when it blew from the North Wet, being, at this time, in the ituation which I had often heard my old commander, Captain Cook, mention, as the poition of the Ile of Grand: I accordingly entertained great expectations of eeing it; more epecially as the birds appeared in great numbers during the whole of the day. In the evening we tood away to the Southward, in which direction I continued my coure for the night. At day-light, on the eighteenth, the urface of the water was covered with feathers; and frequently in the forenoon we paed everal birch twigs, as well as quantities of drift-wood and ea-weed. Thee appearances continued until noon of the ame day, when our obervation was in Latitude 40° 12′ South: Longitude by obervation of Sun and Moon, 35° 34′ Wet; and by mean of chronometers 34° 8′. At this time the appearance of the ea had changed to a dirty green; which could not be the effect of the ky, as it was very clear: thoe tokens of land induced me to heave to and try for oundings with an hundred and fifty fathoms of line, but got no bottom, we had no ooner got the lead in, when to our great atonihment, at three or four miles ditance from us, the whole horizon was covered with birds of the blue petrel kind. At the ame time black whales were een pouting in every direction, and the boats purued one to