Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/518

480 close on our course on the larboard tack, with the wind at E.S.E. steering for Cape Diemen, and abandoning an extremely arid coast, along which we had held our course, above 820,000 toises, in the general direction of W. ¼ S.W to E. ¼ N.E. Fifteen months before us, Vancouver, equally opposed by the east winds, had been forced to abandon his enterprize, after having explored only about 360,000 toises of the coast.

Before we approached that coast, we did not expect to find boisterous winds so frequent, especially at that season, which might have been supposed the finest, in those latitudes, the sun having been then above two months in the southern hemisphere. Is this impetuosity of the winds caused by the prodigious difference, which exists between the cool temperature of the atmosphere over the sea, and the ardour of the solar rays concentrated by the burning sands on the main land?

The currents, experienced on that coast, always conform to the direction of the winds.

The Esperance was in full greater distress than we. Besides, that frigate had sustained several injuries, when last at anchor, and needed an excellent harbour, where she might receive all the necessary repairs. At