a. Some islands were in sight ahead,
lying near the land.

At 8 in the evening they passed the SW cape of Van Diemen's land,
hitherto known as that of New Holland. It is a narrow piece of land,
projecting from the higher land at no great distance, with two flattish
hummocks, that gave it some little resemblance to the Ram Head near
Plymouth. Having passed the Cape, they hauled up, and went between the
islands, which are De Witt's Isles, and the main. At sunset they were
about a mile and a half from the South Cape.

The south west and south Capes lie nearly east and west of each other,
and are distant about fifteen leagues. The intermediate coast forms the
southern boundary of Van Diemen's land; but if taken upon the more
extensive scale of the whole southern hemisphere, it appears, as the
south point of New Holland, to be of equal respectability with the
extremity of Terra del Fuego, and of the Cape of Good Hope, the south
points of the continents of America and Africa.

The relative situations of these three points, when viewed upon
a chart drawn on the plane of the equator, or upon an artificial globe,
are particularly striking. They will be found to lie at nearly equal
distances from each other in the circumference, and each extending
itself so directly towards the south, that, if continued on in the
same line, they would certainly meet somewhere near the pole. The effect
that is produced upon the whole globe, by this peculiar disposition of
three of its most prominent points, seems indeterminable.

Like that of Terra del Fuego, the extremity of Van Diemen's land presents
a rugged and determined front to the icy regions of the south pole; and,
like it, seems once to have extended further south than it does at
present. To a very unusual elevation is added an irregularity of form,
that justly entitles it to rank among the foremost of the grand and
wildly magnificent scenes of nature. It abounds with peaks and ridges,
gaps and fissures, that not only disdain the smallest uniformity of
figure, but are ever changing shape, as the point of view shifts. Beneath
this strange confusion, the western part of this waving coast-line
observes a regularity equally remarkable as the wild disorder which
prevails above. Lofty ridges of mountain, bounded by tremendous cliffs,
project from two to four miles into the sea, at nearly equal distances
from each other, with a breadth varying from two miles to two and a half.
The bights o