Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/520

482 Islands. Captain Cook, in exploring the eastern part of New Holland, saw no land in that space, the extent of which is about 102,600 toises, and believed it to be the entrance of a great gulph. Perhaps on that part of the coast, a channel commences, which, after forming different sinuosities, opens westward in the same latitude, in which we experienced such strong currents.

We had no westerly winds, till we reached the fortieth degree of south latitude; and they carried us to Cape Diemen, varying from the south-west to the north-west.

About ten o'clock, we saw at a small distance, a great number of cetaceous fishes, of a new species, which appeared to me to be of the genus delphinus. They were easily distinguished by a large white spot, behind the dorsal fin. The upper part of the body is of a blackish brown, and the belly white. The largest were above nine feet in length. They were preceded by a great number of dolphins (delphinus delphis), and they swam in shoals like them, making, with great rapidity, nearly the same movements with those cetaceous fishes.

We lay to during the night, designing in the morning to make the land, a degree lower in latitude than Cape Diemen. We hoped to dis- cover