Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/452

424 where they groaned under an almost equal state of servitude!

The Commodore had allowed the people to bring pigs and fowls on board, for their private use; and all parts of the ship were lumbered with them, but especially between decks; and they were the more troublesome, as the disagreeable odour which they diffused, was considerably increased by the heat of the climate.

19th. This evening, when we were in latitude 7° 10′ south, and longitude 123° 14′ east, the compass had no variation.

21st. This morning early, we saw a phœnomenon, which we had already observed several times, and which never fails to alarm navigators, who sometimes, during the night, take it for the effect of breakers. The air being scarcely in motion, we observed the sea foaming at some distance. Waves followed each other in quick succession, and we were fast approaching to the spot. A very heavy swell, occasioned by the sea receiving an impulse contrary to that communicated to it in the preceding night, succeeded the agitation of the water. The cause appeared to me to depend on the tide struggling between lands, where the currents acquire a velocity proportioned to the confinement of the channel.

About nine o'clock in the morning, we saw Kisser