Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/279

] not above 2,500 toises in circumference, is situated in 18° 31′ 10″ of south latitude, and in 160° 32′ 14″ of east longitude.

Agreeable to the promise of the General, this island was called Moulin's Island, after the man who first observed it.

About four o'clock two other little islands were descried towards N.W. ¼ N. distant about 8,000 toises. As it was impossible for us to pass those islands before night, at five o'clock we directed our course to the S.S.E. and we kept the ship's head that way till the morning.

We were surrounded during the night with flocks of birds, which inhabited those low islands. Notwithstanding the darkness, the man-of-war birds came and hovered over our ship, and several boobies alighted upon our yards.

2d. The Commander had intended to anchor under the shelter of Moulin's Island; but we found ourselves carried above 5,000 toises to leeward, and it would have been extremely difficult to work up to windward against both wind and current. We therefore steered N.N.E. and it was not long till we observed, towards the north, breakers not far from the two little islands, which we had observed the preceding day. We steered parallel to them, at the distance of about 1,000 toises