Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/354

326 air, by the machine, which I have already described; but it always retained a brackish taste.

18th. A storm had howled, for a part of the night, on the coast of New Guinea, and had given us a great quantity of rain. The sky seemed to announce a tempest; but the storms, near the Equator, are more menacing, than really formidable, and we soon enjoyed a very clear sky.

We saw a fine chain of mountains which ranged towards the east. The highest of them appeared to be at least 750 toises in perpendicular altitude. The large trees, with which they were covered, added greatly to the picturesque appearance of the country.

19th. Being in 0° 18′ south latitude, and 130° 52′ east longitude and 1,000 toises distant from New Guinea, we sounded with one hundred fathoms of line, but found no bottom.

The first indication we had of the inhabitants of that island, was the smoke of two fires, which rose from among the large trees near the coast.

We were then near the promontory of New

Guinea,