indward to go round the
reef, find a channel through it, or go on shore: the first,
therefore, we determined to attempt, so we made all the sail the
ship could bear, and stood towards the reef, and it being then
evening we wished to ascertain our exact situation before
dark.

We found the reef composed of a number of low islands or keys,
and many rocks above the water, and of considerable breadth; in
short, there was not the smallest hope of passing through it, the
sea broke very high on every part of it, which we could reach
with the eye from the mast-head. As soon as it was dark, and we
thought ourselves near enough to it, we tacked, and kept every
person upon deck during the night. We had, during the time we
were running to leeward and making observations on the coast,
passed by a number of low islands, covered with trees or shrubs,
and had observed they were all surrounded with a reef, which the
sea broke upon, and among these little islands were many reefs,
which appeared only by the breaking of the sea: we were then
thoroughly sensible of our mistake, and that the land which we
had taken from its extent to be a part of New Caledonia, was the
Isle of Pines; and that the height which we had steered down for,
and thought to be a part of the coast which Captain Cook had not
seen, was what he called the Prince of Wales's Foreland, and was
the farthest land he had seen to the westward.

We kept working to windward all night, between that extensive
reef to the westward, and those small keys and reefs which lay
between us and the land, and of which I have since observed,
Captain Cook, in his sketch, takes no notice; the outer reef he
marks, but leaves a large open space between it and the land,
which describes the reef to be a round cluster of rocks above and
under water: he probably had not an opportunity of observing this
dangerous place so near to the land as we had: there may be a
channel to the leeward between the inner end of this reef and the
shore, but it had very little the appearance of it; as we saw
many low shrubby islands between us and the shore, to which they
were probably connected by a reef under water, which, at the
distance we were from it, could not be ascertained.

At day-light in the morning of the 24th, we observed with no
small degree of pleasure, that we had gained ground to windward;
but this we knew was not owing to any weatherly qualities in the
ship, but to the wind having varied several