Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/119

] not have been informed of our danger till the vessel struck upon it. If we had doubled the rock to windward, or even to leeward at a proper distance, we should not have run this risk.

18th. Next morning at day-break we made Curtis's Islands. These are two very small isles, near four leagues distant from each other. The southernmost is about a mile long only from north to south, steep, very bare, and interspersed with a great number of rocks, the summits of the highest of which reach about a hundred yards above the level of the sea. Their whitish colour led me to presume, that they were of a calcareous nature, like most of the lands found in these seas.

The other island is tolerably rounded, covered with verdure, and as high as the former. Its sides are steep almost every where, yet you may land upon it toward the west. It is in the latitude of 30° 18′ 26″ south, longitude 179° 38′ east.

About six in the evening we perceived at a great distance to the north-north-west, a new island, which induced us to lay to all night.

19th. The next morning, when day broke, we had sight of the same island toward the north, and still upwards of ten leagues distance; but about five in the afternoon we were close in with it, and had already seen the whole of its circum-