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

continued without intermission till noon the next day, when we cast off the shore fasts, hove the shipout of the creek to her anchor, and steadied her with an hawser to the shore.On the 27th, hazy weather, with showers of rain. In the morning I set out, accompanied by MrPickersgill and the two Mr Forsters, to explore the arm or inlet I discovered the day I returned fromthe head of the bay. After rowing about two leagues up it, or rather down, I found it to communicatewith the sea, and to afford a better outlet for ships bound to the north than the one I came in by.After making this discovery, and refreshing ourselves on broiled fish and wild fowl, we set out forthe ship, and got on board at eleven o'clock at night, leaving two arms we had discovered, and whichran into the east, unexplored. In this expedition we shot forty- four birds, sea-pies, ducks, &c.,without going one foot out of our way, or causing any other delay than picking them up.Having got the tents, and every other article on board on the 28th, we only now waited for a wind tocarry us out of the harbour, and through New Passage, the way I proposed to go to sea. Every thingbeing removed from the shore, I set fire to the top-wood, &c., in order to dry a piece of the groundwe had occupied, which, next morning, I dug up, and sowed with several sorts of garden seeds. Thesoil was such as did not promise success to the planter; it was, however, the best we could find. Attwo o clock in the afternoon, we weighed with a light breeze at S.W., and stood up the bay for theNew Passage. Soon after we had got through, between the east end of Indian Island and the west endof Long Island, it fell calm, which obliged us to anchor in forty-three fathom water, under the northside of the latter island.In the morning of the 30th we weighed again with a light breeze at west, which, together with all ourboats a-head towing, was hardly sufficient to stem the current. For, after struggling till six o'clock inthe evening, and not getting more than five miles from our last anchoring-place, we anchored underthe north side of Long Island, not more than one hundred yards from the shore, to which we fasteneda hawser.At day-light next morning, May 1st, we got again under sail, and attempted to work to windward,having a light breeze down the bay. At first we gained ground, but at last the breeze died away;when we soon lost more than we had got, and were obliged to bear up for a cove on the north side ofLong Island, where we anchored in nineteen fathom water, a muddy bottom: In this cove we foundtwo huts not long since inhabited; and near them two very large fire-places or ovens, such as theyhave in the Society Isles. In this cove we were detained by calms, attended with continual rain, tillthe 4th in the afternoon, when, with the assistance of a small breeze at south- west, we got the lengthof the reach or passage leading to sea. The breeze then left us, and we anchored under the east point,before a sandy beach, in thirty fathoms water; but this anchoring-place hath nothing to recommend itlike the one we came from, which hath every thing in its favour.In the night we had some very heavy squalls of wind, attended with rain, hail, and snow, and somethunder. Daylight exhibited to our view all the hills and mountains covered with snow. At twoo'clock in the afternoon, a light breeze sprung up at S.S.W., which, with the help of our boats,carried us down the passage to our intended anchor-place, where, at eight o'clock, we anchored insixteen fathoms water, and moored with a hawser to the shore, under the first point on the starboardside as you come in from sea, from which we were covered by the point.In the morning of the 6th, I sent Lieutenant Pickersgill, accompanied by the two Mr Forsters, toexplore the second arm which turns in to the east, myself being confined on board by a cold. At thesame time I had every thing got up from between decks, the decks well cleaned and well aired withfires; a thing that ought never to be long neglected in wet moist weather. The fair weather, whichhad continued all this day, was succeeded in the night by a storm from north-west, which blew in