a,
that there is a channel there coming out into these seas, as I now
suspected, near Rosemary Island: unless the high tides and great
indraught thereabout should be occasioned by the mouth of some large
river; which has often low lands on each side of its outlet, and many
islands and shoals lying at its entrance. But I rather thought it a
channel or strait than a river: and I was afterwards confirmed in this
opinion when, by coasting New Guinea, I found that other parts of this
great tract of Terra Australis, which had hitherto been represented as
the shore of a continent, were certainly islands; and it is probably the
same with New Holland: though, for reasons I shall afterwards show, I
could not return by the way I proposed to myself to fix the discovery.
All that I had now seen from the latitude of 27 degrees south to 25,
which is Shark's Bay; and again from thence to Rosemary Islands and about
the latitude of 20; seems to be nothing but ranges of pretty large
islands against the sea, whatever might be behind them to the eastward,
whether sea or land, continent or islands.

But to proceed with my voyage. Though the land I had seen as yet was not
very inviting, being but barren towards the sea, and affording me neither
fresh water nor any great store of other refreshments, nor so much as a
fit place for careening; yet I stood out to sea again with thoughts of
coasting still alongshore (as near as I could) to the north-eastward, for
the further discovery of it: persuading myself that at least the place I
anchored at in my voyage round the world, in the latitude of 16 degrees
15 minutes, from which I was not now far distant, would not fail to
afford me sweet water upon digging, as it did then; for the brackish
water I had taken in here, though it served tolerably well for boiling,
was yet not very wholesome.

With these intentions I put to sea on the 5th of September 1699, with a
gentle gale, sounding all the way; but was quickly induced to alter my
design. For I had not been out above a day but I found that the shoals
among which I was engaged all the while on the coast, and was like to be
engaged in, would make it a very tedious thing to sail along by the
shore, or to put in where I might have occasion. I therefore edged
farther off to sea, and so deepened the water from 11 to 32 fathom. The
next day, being September the 6th, we could but just discern the land,
though we had then no more than about 30 fathom, uncert