BY CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER.

Having described his voyage from Brazil to New Holland, this celebrated
navigator thus proceeds:

About the latitude of 26 degrees south we saw an opening, and ran in,
hoping to find a harbour there; but when we came to its mouth, which was
about two leagues wide, we saw rocks and foul ground within, and
therefore stood out again; there we had twenty fathom water within two
miles of the shore: the land everywhere appeared pretty low, flat, and
even, but with steep cliffs to the sea, and when we came near it there
were no trees, shrubs, or grass to be seen. The soundings in the
latitude of 26 degrees south, from about eight or nine leagues off till
you come within a league of the shore, are generally about forty fathoms,
differing but little, seldom above three or four fathoms; but the lead
brings up very different sorts of sand, some coarse, some fine, and of
several colours, as yellow, white, grey, brown, bluish, and reddish.

When I saw there was no harbour here, nor good anchoring, I stood off to
sea again in the evening of the 2nd of August, fearing a storm on a lee-
shore, in a place where there was no shelter, and desiring at least to
have sea-room, for the clouds began to grow thick in the western-board,
and the wind was already there and began to blow fresh almost upon the
shore, which at this place lies along north-north-west and south-south-
east. By nine o'clock at night we got a pretty good offing, but the wind
still increasing, I took in my main-top-sail, being able to carry no more
sail than two courses and the mizen. At two in the morning, August 3rd,
it blew very hard, and the sea was much raised, so that I furled all my
sails but my mainsail, though the wind blew so hard, we had pretty clear
weather till noon, but then the whole sky was blackened with thick