three-quarters of an hour they killed and brought off ten pigeons. Here
is a tide: the flood sets west and the ebb east, but the latter is very
faint and but of small continuance, and so we found it ever since we came
from Timer: the winds we found easterly, between north-east and
east-south-east, so that if these continue, it is impossible to beat
farther to the eastward on this coast against wind and current. These
easterly winds increased from the time we were in the latitude of about 2
degrees south, and as we drew nigher the line they hung more easterly:
and now being to the north of the continent of New Guinea, where the
coast lies east and west, I find the trade-wind here at east, which yet
in higher latitudes is usually at north-north-west and north-west; and so
I did expect them here, it being to the south of the line.

The 7th, in the morning, I sent my boat ashore on Pigeon Island, and
stayed till noon. In the afternoon my men returned, brought twenty-two
pigeons, and many cockles, some very large, some small: they also brought
one empty shell, that weighed two hundred and fifty-eight pounds.

At four o'clock we weighed, having a small westerly wind and a tide with
us; at seven in the evening we anchored in forty-two fathom, near King
William's Island, where I went ashore the next morning, drank His
Majesty's health, and honoured it with his name. It is about two leagues
and a half in length, very high and extraordinarily well clothed with
woods; the trees are of divers sorts, most unknown to us, but all very
green and flourishing; many of them had flowers, some white, some purple,
others yellow: all which smelt very fragrantly: the trees are generally
tall and straight bodied, and may be fit for any use. I saw one of a
clean body, without knot or limb, sixty or seventy feet high by
estimation; it was three of my fathoms about, and kept its bigness,
without any sensible decrease, even to the top. The mould of the island