e courtesy,
perhaps, to the goddess, was given the name of the Shoal of Diana. A
sand-bank and breakers were discovered on the 6th, and indicated such a
dangerous navigation, that Bougainville immediately resolved on altering
his course, which he did by steering N.E. by N., abandoning entirely his
scheme of proceeding westward, in the latitude of 15 deg.. He justifies this
conduct by the reflection, that though he had persevered in his original
intention, he must have reached the eastern coast of New Holland, which,
estimating it by what Dampier ascertained of the western coast, would
have proved both unimportant and inhospitable. The judicious reader,
however, will allow far greater weight to the circumstances of his
deficiency for an uncertain navigation, than to such hypothetical
reasoning. He had only bread for two months, and pulse for forty days;
and his salt meat had become so bad, that the crew preferred the rats to
it, whenever they were fortunate enough to catch them.

The S.E. wind unluckily failing them, their course from the 7th made
good, was only N. by E., when on the 10th at day-break, land was seen,
bearing from E. to N.W., a delicious smell having previously intimated
its vicinity. This was off the N.E. coast of New Holland, the passage
betwixt which and New Britain, Bougainville mistook for a deep gulph or
bay, and which of course he had the utmost difficulty to get clear of,
with an unfavourable wind, very bad weather, and a great south-eastern
swell. This mistake seems to have occasioned him more danger and much
greater hardships than had yet been experienced. To this imaginary
gulph, Bougainville gave the name of Gulph of the Louisiade, and that of
Cape Deliverance to its N. or N.N.E. extremity, which he doubled after
no less than a fortnight spent in extreme peril and continual fears. In
the morning of the 28th, when about sixty leagues to the northward of
this cape, and steering N.E. on the coast of New Britain, he discovered
land to the N.W. nine or ten leagues off. This proved to be two isles,
and about the same time there appeared a long high coast, extending to
the northward for some distance, and then turning to N.N.W. His
situation was extremely hazardous among these lands, to him altogether
unknown, often surrounded with dangerous shoals, and his boats, which
were occasionally sent out to sound, being sometimes beset by the
natives. It was not till the 5th of July, that he succeeded in find