ck and white. On the 4th, we
saw a great quantity of rock weed, and several seals: The prevailing
winds were westerly, so that being continually driven to the eastward,
we foresaw that it would not be easy to get in with the coast of
Patagonia. On the 10th, we observed the water to change colour, but we
had no ground with one hundred and forty fathom. The next day we stood
in for the land till eight in the evening, when we had ground of red
sand with forty-five fathom. We steered S.W. by W. all night, and the
next morning had fifty-two fathom with the same ground: Our latitude now
being 42 deg.34' S., longitude 58 deg.17' W., the variation 11 deg.1/4 E.

On Monday the 12th, about four o'clock in the afternoon, as I was
walking on the quarter-deck, all the people upon the forecastle called
out at once, "Land right a-head;" it was then very black almost round
the horizon, and we had had much thunder and lightning; I looked forward
under the fore-sail, and upon the lee-bow, and saw what at first
appeared to be an island, rising in two rude craggy hills, but upon
looking to leeward I saw land joining to it, and running a long way to
the south-east: We were then steering S.W. and I sent officers to the
mast-head to look out upon the weather-beam, and they called out that
they saw land also a great way to the windward. I immediately brought
to, and sounded; we had still fifty-two fathom, but I thought that we
were embayed, and rather wished than hoped that we should get clear
before night. We made sail and steered E.S.E. the land still having the
same appearance, and the hills looking blue, as they generally do at a
little distance in dark rainy weather, and now many of the people said
that they saw the sea break upon the sandy beaches; but having steered
out for about an hour, what we had taken for land vanished all at once,
and to our astonishment appeared to have been a fog-bank. Though I had
been almost continually at sea for seven-and-twenty years, I had never
seen such a deception before; others, however, have been equally
deceived; for the master of a ship not long since made oath, that he had
seen an island between the west end of Ireland and Newfoundland, and
even distinguished the trees that grew upon it Yet it is certain that no
such island exists, at least it could never be found, though several
ships were afterwards sent out on purpose to seek it. And I am sure,
that if the weather had not cleared up soon enough f