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738 KERGUELEN’S VOYAGE TO THE NORTH.
fea, efpecially in bad weather, I wondered that any man enjoying a fufficiency could be
induced to truft himfelf twice to the mercy of the winds and billows: fortunately for
this condition of life, one hour of fair weather obliterates the remembrance of days of
danger and toil.
‘The ninth, we had the fame weather, the wind was equally boifterous, and the fea as
tremendous as before; I ftill kept all failsreefed : once I attempted to fet the main-top-
callant and the mizen, in order to pafs by day-light the latitude of another bank marked
on all the Dutch charts, and the exiftence of which the experienced pilots I had on
board affured me had been verified by the lofs of feveral veffels ; but I was obliged to
haul in the main-top-gallant. This bank, according to the Dutch accounts, extends
from N. to S. eleven leagues, and from E. to W. about five leagues I caufed it to be
marked on our charts. I do not afirm there being any very high fhelving or dangerous
fand in this pofition ; but I am perfuaded, from the prodigious number of birds, the
multitude of them of thofe fpecies which only refort to fhallows, and from the frequent
ftriking of the waves againft the veflel, that there isa bank there. Several times during
the day, and in the evening, I founded, but without finding a bottom : when exhaufted
by the bad weather, and the violent rolling to which we had been fubjeét for two days,
I was anxious to get fome reft, and laid down, after ordering the officer of the watch to
found at midnight; which was done. After letting out fixty-five fathoms of line, they
cried bottom, becaufe the lead did not draw any longer; but as the tallow with which
the lead is loaded to take the impreflion of the bottom fhewed nothing, they thought
they might have been deceived, and did not wake me, which I had ordered them to do,
in cafe of finding bottom. I conjecture that we paffed the edge of the bank, and fa-
thomed it, and which perfaades me was the cafe: on examining by day-light the large
end of the lead to which the tallow is applied, I found adhering to it fome fine grains of
fand, the roughnefs of which was diftinguifhable by the finger ; and I conceive that the
violent agitation of the waves might have wafhed the lead on heaving it up, and the
more eafily from the grains of fand being very fine and mixed with mud.
‘he tenth and eleventh, the fame weather ftill continued, violent eaft winds and very
hich fea.
“Ou the eleventh at noon, I was by reckoning in 61°20’ latitude, and longitude 19° 30°
weltward of Paris, inthe afternoon the wind veered to the S. E.; it was lefs impetuous,
I deemed the weather notwithftanding too bad to make land, but at four o’clock feeing
feveral veflels called Doggers, which went before the wind to the N. W.; I judged that
they who were fifhermen going to Iceland had fallen in the day before, and recognized
the ifles of Ferro, and fatisfied with refpect to their pofition, they bent their courfe to fall
in with the iflands of Wefterman, which are to the S. of Iceland. The courfe of thefe
doggers, and the tirefomenefs of the bad-weather, engaged me to go before the wind. I
did not, like the fifhermen, however, keep dire€tly before the wind, but {teered N.N.W.,
in order to make land higher up, that is to fay, more to the eaft than the Wefterman
iflands.
I kept on this tack all night, and until five the next morning, the twelfth of May,
when I made cape Heckla; I then fteered W. N. W. for the Wefterman iflands, which
I faw at eight o’clock. I took an altitude at noon, and from the difference of latitude
by obfervation from that of bearings, I found that on the large chart of M. Bellin, pub-
lifhed in 1767, the coaft was laid down in general 8’ more to the S. than what it ought
to be. Off cape Heckla, in the morning, we noticed the variation of the compafs was
29°. I obferved that cape Heckla had two points ftretching from E.toW. We faw
alfo mount Heckla, which is nearly in the N. W., corrected by the cape. The volcano
of
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