on to the description
of it. "C'est un usage qui ne remonte pas plus haut que ce voyage
celebre de Gama, qui a fourni au Camoens le sujet de la Lusiade. L'idee
qu'on ne scauroit etre un bon marin, sans avoir traverse l'Equateur,
l'ennui inseparable d'une longue navigation, un certain esprit
republicain qui regne dans toutes les petites societes, peut-etre toutes
ces causes reunies, ont pu donner naissance a ces especes de saturnales.
Quoiqu'il en soi, elles furent adoptees, en un instant, dans toutes les
nations, et les hommes les plus eclaires furent obliges de se soumettre
a une coutume dont ils reconnoissoient l'absurdite. Car, partout, des
que le peuple parle, il faut que le sage se mette a l'unison."--_Histoire
d'un Voyage aux Isles Malouines_, p. 107, 108.--D.]

On the 8th, we were in the latitude of 8 deg. 57' S.; which is a little to
the southward of Cape St Augustine, on the coast of Brazil. Our
longitude, deduced from a very great number of lunar observations, was
34 deg. 16' W.; and by the watch, 34 deg. 47'. The former is 1 deg. 43', and the
latter 2 deg. 14' more westerly than the island of Fernando de Noronha, the
situation of which was pretty well determined during my late voyage.
Hence I concluded that we could not now be farther from the continent
than twenty or thirty leagues at most; and perhaps not much less, as we
neither had soundings nor any other signs of land. Dr Halley, however,
in his voyage, published by Mr Dalrymple, tells us,[85] that "he made no
more than one hundred and two miles, meridian distance, from the island
[Fernando de Noronha] to the coast of Brazil;" and seems to think that
"currents could not be the whole cause" of his making so little. But I
rather think that he was mistaken, and that the currents had hurried him
far to the westward of his intended course. This was, in some measure,
confirmed by our own observations; for we had found, during three or
four days preceding the 8th, that the currents set to the westward; and,
during the last twenty-four hours, it had set strong to the northward,
as we experienced a difference of twenty-nine miles between our observed
latitude and that by dead reckoning. Upon the whole, till some better
astronomical observations are made on shore on the eastern coast of
Brazil, I shall conclude that its longitude is thirty-five degrees and a
half, or thirty-six degrees W., at most.

[Footnote 85: Page 11.]

We proceeded on our voyage, without me