d sound. The birds last mentioned and this
were further signs of land. In the evening we had fair weather and a
small gale at west. At 8 o'clock we sounded again; but had no ground.

We kept on still to the eastward, with an easy sail looking out sharp:
for by the many signs we had I did expect that we were near the land. At
12 o'clock in the night I sounded and had 45 fathom, coarse sand and
small white shells. I presently clapped on a wind and stood to the south,
with the wind at west, because I thought we were to the south of a shoal
called the Abrolhos (an appellative name for shoals as it seems to me)
which in a chart I had of that coast is laid down in 27 degrees 28
minutes latitude stretching about 7 leagues into the sea. I was the day
before in 27 degrees 38 minutes by reckoning. And afterwards, steering
east by south purposely to avoid it, I thought I must have been to the
south of it: but sounding again at 1 o'clock in the morning August the
first, we had but 25 fathom, coral rocks; and so found the shoal was to
the south of us. We presently tacked again, and stood to the north, and
then soon deepened our water; for at 2 in the morning we had 26 fathom
coral still: at 3 we had 28 coral ground: at 4 we had 30 fathom, coarse
sand, with some coral: at 5 we had 45 fathom, coarse sand and shells;
being now off the shoal, as appeared by the sand and shells, and by
having left the coral. By all this I knew we had fallen into the north of
the shoal, and that it was laid down wrong in my sea-chart: for I found
it lie in about 27 degrees latitude, and by our run in the next day I
found that the outward edge of it, which I sounded on, lies 16 leagues
off shore. When it was day we steered in east-north-east with a fine
brisk gale; but did not see the land till 9 in the morning, when we saw
it from our topmast-head, and were distant from it about 10 leagues;
having then 40 fathom water, and clean sand. About 3 hours after we saw
it on our quarter-deck, being by judgment about 6 leagues off, and we had
then 40 fathom, clean sand. As we ran in this day and the next we took
several sights of it, at different bearings and distances; from which it
appeared as you see. And here I would note once for all that the
latitudes marked in the draughts, or sights here given, are not the
latitude of the land, but of the ship when the sight was taken. This
morning, August the first, as we were standing in, we saw several large
seafowls, li