A General History & Collection of Voyages and Travels ... - Nauticus

view of plying up to the eastward on the south side of Apee. At sun- rise we discovered several moreislands, extending from the S.E. point of Apee to the south as far as S.E. by S. The nearest to us wereached by ten o'clock, and not being able to weather it, we tacked a mile from its shore in fourteenfathoms water. This island is about four leagues in circuit, is remarkable by having three high peaked hillsupon it, by which it has obtained that name. In the p.m. the wind veering more to the north, we resumedour course to the east; and having weathered Threehills, stood for the group of small isles which lie off theS.E. point of Apee. These I called Shepherd's Isles, in honour of my worthy friend Dr Shepherd, Plumianprofessor of astronomy at Cambridge. Having a fine breeze, I had thoughts of going through betweenthem; but the channels being narrow, and seeing broken water in the one we were steering for, I gave upthe design, and bore up, in order to go without, or to the south of them. Before this could be accomplished,it fell calm, and we were left to the mercy of the current, close to the isles, where we could find nosoundings with a line of an hundred and eighty fathoms. We had now land or islands in every direction,and were not able to count the number which lay round us. The mountain on Paoon was seen over the eastend of Apee, bearing N.N.W. at eight o'clock. A breeze at S.E. relieved us from the anxiety the calm hadoccasioned; and we spent the night in making short boards.The night before we came out of Port Sandwich, two reddish fish, about the size of large bream, and notunlike them, were caught with hook and line. On these fish most of the officers, and some of the pettyofficers, dined the next day. The night following, every one who had eaten of them was seized with violentpains in the head and bones, attended with a scorching heat all over the skin, and numbness in the joints.There remained no doubt that this was occasioned by the fish being of a poisonous nature, and havingcommunicated its bad effects to all who partook of them, even to the hogs and dogs. One of the formerdied about sixteen hours after; it was not long before one of the latter shared the same fate; and it was aweek or ten days before all the gentlemen recovered. These must have been the same sort of fishmentioned by Quiros,[1] under the name of pargos, which poisoned the crews of his ships, so that it wassome time before they recovered; and we should, doubtless, have been in the same situation, had more ofthem been eaten.[1] Dalrymple's Collection of Voyages, vol. I. p. 140, 141.At day break on the 25th, we made a short stretch to the east of Shepherd's Isles till after sun-rise, whenseeing no more land in that direction, we tacked and stood for the island we had seen in the south, having agentle breeze at S.E. We passed to the east of Threehills, and likewise of a low isle, which lies on the S.E.side of it, between a remarkable peaked rock which obtained the name of Monument, and a small islandnamed Twohills, on account of two peaked hills upon it, disjoined by a low and narrow isthmus. Thechannel between this island and the Monument is near a mile broad, and twenty-four fathoms deep. Exceptthis rock, which is only accessible to birds, we did not find an island on which people were not seen. Atnoon, we observed, in latitude 17° 18' 30"; longitude, made from Port Sandwich, 45' E. In this situation,the Monument bore N. 16° E. distant two miles; Twohills bore N. 25° W. distant two miles, and in a linewith the S.W. part of Threehills; and the islands to the south extended from S. 16° 30' E. to S. 42° W.Continuing our course to the south, at five p.m. we drew near the southern lands, which we found toconsist of one large island, whose southern and western extremities extended beyond our sight, and threeor four smaller ones lying off its north side. The two northernmost are much the largest, have a goodheight, and lie in the direction of E. by S. and W. by N. from each other, distant two leagues; I named theone Montagu and the other Hinchinbrook, and the large island Sandwich, in honour of my noble patron theEarl of Sandwich. Seeing broken water ahead, between Montagu and Hinchinbrook isles, we tacked; andsoon after it fell calm. The calm continued till seven o'-clock the next morning, when it was succeeded by a