d'un aspect moins
rude."--_De Pages_, tom. ii. p. 68.--D.]

We had scarcely finished taking the bearings at noon, before we observed
low land opening off the low point just mentioned, in the direction of
S.S.E., and eight miles beyond it. This new point proved to be the very
eastern extremity of this land, and it was named Cape Digby. It is
situated in the latitude of 49 deg. 23' S., and in the longitude of 70 deg. 34'
E.

Between Howe's Foreland and Cape Digby, the shore forms (besides the
several lesser bays and harbours) one great bay that extends several
leagues to the S.W., where it seemed to lose itself in various arms
running in, between the mountains. A prodigious quantity of sea-weed
grows all over it, which seemed to be the same sort of weed that Sir
Joseph Banks distinguished by the name of _fucus giganteus_. Some of
this weed is of a most enormous length, though the stem is not much
thicker than a man's thumb. I have mentioned, that on some of the shoals
upon which it grows, we did not strike ground with a line of twenty-four
fathoms. The depth of water, therefore, must have been greater. And as
this weed does not grow in a perpendicular direction, but makes a very
acute angle with the bottom, and much of it afterward spreads many
fathoms on the surface of the sea, I am well warranted to say, that some
of it grows to the length of sixty fathoms and upward.

At one o'clock (having run two leagues upon a S.E. 1/2 E. course, from
noon) we sounded, and found eighteen fathoms water, and a bottom of fine
sand. Seeing a small bending in the coast, on the north side of Cape
Digby, I steered for it. It was my intention to anchor there, if I
should find it might be done with safety, and to land on the Cape, to
examine what the low land within it produced. After running in one
league, we sounded again, and found thirteen fathoms; and immediately
after, saw a shoal right before us, that seemed to extend off from the
shore, from which we were distant about two miles. This discovery
obliged us to haul off, E. by S., one league, where our depth of water
increased to twenty-five fathoms. We then steered along shore, and
continued in the same depth, over a bottom of fine sand, till Cape
Digby bore W., two leagues distant, when we found twenty-six fathoms.

After this we did not strike ground, though we tried several times; but
the ship having a good deal of way, ran the line out before the lead
could reach the bottom, an