and therefore think it very probable that they were
the islands he had visited.[47] The farthest island that he knew any
thing of to the southward, he said, lay at the distance of about two
days sail from Oteroah, and was called _Moutou_; but he said that his
father had told him there were islands to the southward of that: Upon
the whole, I was determined to stand southward in search of a continent,
but to spend no time in searching for islands, if we did not happen to
fall in with them during our course.

[Footnote 47: These and other islands since discovered in the South Sea,
will be properly laid down in a map to be afterwards given. The chart
that accompanied the preceding volume was restricted to the state of
geographical knowledge at the time of publishing Hawkesworth's work, and
is, of coarse, imperfect. But it was judged unadvisable to anticipate
recent information.--E.]

SECTION XXI.

_The Passage from Oteroah to New Zealand; Incidents which happened on
going a-shore there, and while the Ship lay in Poverty Bay_.

We sailed from Oteroah on the 15th of August, and on Friday the 25th we
celebrated the anniversary of our leaving England, by taking a Cheshire
cheese from a locker, where it had been carefully treasured up for this
occasion, and tapping a cask of porter, which proved to be very good,
and in excellent order. On the 29th, one of the sailors got so drunk,
that the next morning he died: We thought at first that he could not
have come honestly by the liquor, but we afterwards learnt that the
boatswain, whose mate he was, had in mere good-nature given him part of
a bottle of rum.

On the 30th we saw the comet: At one o'clock in the morning it was a
little above the horizon in the eastern part of the heavens; at about
half an hour after four it passed the meridian, and its tail subtended
an angle of forty-two degrees. Our latitude was 38 deg. 20' S., our
longitude, by log, 147 deg. 6' W., and the variation of the needle, by the
azimuth, 7 deg. 9' E. Among others that observed the comet, was Tupia, who
instantly cried out, that as soon as it should be seen by the people of
Bolabola, they would kill the inhabitants of Ulietea, who would with the
utmost precipitation fly to the mountains.

On the 1st of September, being in the latitude of 40 deg. 22' S. and
longitude 147 deg. 29' W, and there not being any signs of land, with a
heavy sea from the westward, and strong gales, I wore, and stood back to