Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/362

334 We then continued our course between Kilang and Manipa.

About eleven o'clock A.M. the current of the tide raised a rapid succession of waves, tumbling over each other, in wild conflict. We were, in fact, several times witnesses of that phœnomenon, which Dampier and Bougainville compare to the current of a large and very rapid river.

About four P.M. we had doubled the island of Manipa, which is not more than 2,500 toises in extent from north to south. Though very mountainous, that island appeared to be populous, and many canoes were plying along its shore. Its latitude is 3° 21′ S., and its longitude 125° 47′ E.

The island of Kilang is in latitude 3° 17′ S. and longitude 125° 31′ E.

4th. A breeze which arose in the offing, at ten o'clock A.M. favoured our progress towards the south; and we soon had sight of a part of the west coast of Amboyna, bearing S.S.E.

The south wind afterwards opposed us, and obliged us to tack.

5th. A very fresh breeze from the south-east put an end to our hopes of gaining our intended anchoring place this day. Our scorbutic patients, whose number was rapidly increasing, and whose condition became daily more alarming, made