Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/228

188 of the archipelago of Espiritu Santo, discovered by Quiros in 1606. A little before noon the island of Annaton was in sight, distant ten leagues, south west by south.

It was five in the afternoon when we made the island of Tanna, bearing west 16° north. Pillars of smoke issued from its volcano, and spread abroad in the air, forming clouds, which rose at first to a prodigious height, and which, after having traversed an immense space, sunk lower as they grew cooler. During the night we enjoyed the brilliant spectacle of these clouds, illumined by the vivid light of the burning matter, which was thrown out from the bowels of the volcano at intervals.

18th. We were steering westerly, the wind blowing very fresh from the east, when, about half after three in the morning, Dumérite, the officer on the watch, heard the screams of a flock of sea-fowl passing very close by our ship: apprehensive that we were near some of the rocks, which commonly serve them as a retreat, he thought it advisable to bring to, and wait for day-light to continue our course: and as soon as day broke, we saw a very little way to leeward of us some reefs of rocks stretching a great way, on which our ship must inevitably have struck, if this fortuitous occurrence had not given us no-