1767. November

Tuesday 3.

every advantage which this place could afford us, the boats returned on board laden with water, and we went cheerfully on with our business on board the ship. In about two hours, however, we faw with equal furprise and concern, many hundreds of armed men, pofting themfelves in parties at different places among the trees, upon the beach, a-breaft of the ship; their weapons were mufquets, bows and arrows, long pikes or fpears, broad fwords, a kind of hanger called a crefs, and targets: we observed also, that they hauled a canoe, which lay under a shed upon the beach, up into the woods. Thefe were not friendly appearances, and they were fucceeded by others that were still more hoftile; for these people spent all the remainder of the day in entering and rushing out of the woods, as if they had been making fallies to attack an enemy; fometimes fhooting their arrows, and throwing their lances into the water towards the ship; and fometimes lifting their targets, and brandishing their fwords at us in a menacing manner. In the mean time we were not idle on board; we got up our guns, repaired our rigging, and put every thing in order before evening, and then, being ready to fail, I determined, if poffible, to get another conference with the people on fhore, and learn the reafon of so fudden and unaccountable a change of behaviour. The lieutenant therefore was again dispatched,

and

1767November.

and as a testimony that our difpofition was still peaceable, the table-cloth was again displayed as a flag of truce. I had the precaution, how- Tuesday 3. ever, to order the boat to a part of the beach which was clear of wood, that the people on board might not be liable to mischief from ene mies whom they could not fee; I also ordered that nobody should go on fhore. When the Indians faw the boat come to the beach, and observed that nobody landed, one of them came out of the wood with a bow and arrows in his hand, and made figns for the boat to come to the place where he stood. This the officer very prudently declined, as he would then have been within bow-fhot of an ambufcade, and after waiting fome time, and finding that a conference could be procured upon no other terms, he returned back to the fhip. It was certainly in my power to have destroyed many of these unfriendly people, by firing my great guns into the wood, but it would have anfwered no good purpose: we could not afterwards have procured wood and water here without risking the lofs of our own people, and I still hoped that refreshment might be procured upon friendly terms at the town, which, now I was in a condition to defend myself against a sudden affault, I refolved to vifit.

The next morning therefore, as foon as it was Wednaf. 4. light, I failed from this place, which I called

DECEIT

1767. November.

DECEITFUL BAY, with a light land-breeze, and between ten and eleven o'clock we got off the Wednef. 4. bay or nook, at the bottom of which our boats had difcovered the town and fort. It happened however that juft at this time the weather became thick, with heavy rain, and it began to blow hard from a quarter which made the land here a lee fhore; this obliged me to stand off, and having no time to lofe, I ftood away to the weftward that I might reach Batavia before the feason was past.

I fhall now give a more particular account of our navigating the fea that washes the coafts of this ifland, the rather as Dampier's defcrip tion is in feveral particulars erroneous.

7

Having seen the north east part of the ifland on the twenty-fixth of October, without certainly knowing whether it was Mindanao or Saint John's, we got nearer to it the next day, and made what we knew to be Saint Auguftina, the fouth-eaftermost part of the ifland, which rifes in little hummocks, that run down to a low point at the water's edge; it bears N. 40 E. at the distance of two and twenty leagues from a little ifland, which is diftinguished from the other islands that lie off the fouthermoft point of Mindanao by a hill or hummock, and which for that reafon I called HUMMOCK ISLAND. All this land is very high, one ridge of mountains rifing behind another, fo that at a great distance

2

it appears not like one ifland but feveral.
After our first discovery of the ifland, we kept
turning along the eaft fide from the northward
to Cape Saint Auguftina, nearly S. by W. W.
and N. by E. E. for about twenty leagues.
The wind was to the fouthward along the fhore,
and as we approached the land, we ftood in for
an opening, which had the appearance of a good
bay, where we intended to anchor; but we
found that it was too deep for our purpose, and
that fome fhoals rendered the entrance of it
dangerous. To this bay, which lies about eight
or ten leagues N. by E. from Cape Saint
Auguftina, the fouth-eaft extremity of the
ifland, I gave the name of DISAPPOINTMENT
BAY. When we were in the offing standing in
for this bay, we obferved a large hummock,
which had the appearance of an island, but
which I believe to be a peninsula, joined by a
low ifthmus to the main; this hummock formed
the northermoft part of the entrance, and another
high bluff point oppofite to it formed the
fouthermoft part;
between these two points are
the fhoals that have been mentioned; and several
fmall islands, only one of which can be feen till
they are approached very near.
On this part of
the coast we saw no figns of inhabitants; the
land is of a ftupendous height, with mountains
piled upon mountains till the fummits are hid-
den in the clouds: in the offing therefore it is
VOL. II.
almoft

K

1767.

November.

November.

1767. almoft impoffible to eftimate its diftance, for what appear then to be small hillocks, just emerging from the water, in comparison of the mountains that are feen over them, swell into high hills as they are approached, and the diftance is found to be thrice as much as it was imagined; perhaps this will account for the land here being fo ill laid down, and in fituations fo very different, as it appears to be in all our English charts. We found here a strong current fetting to the southward along the shore, as the land trended. The high land that is to the north of Saint Auguftina, becomes gradually lower towards the Cape, a low flat point in which it terminates, and off which, at a very little distance, lie two large rocks. Its latitude is 6° 15′ N. and the longitude, by account, 127° 20′ E.

From this Cape the land trends away W. and W. by S. for fix or feven leagues, and then turns up to the N. W. making a very deep bay, the bottom of which, as we crossed it from Saint Auguftina to the high land on the other fide, which is not less than twelve leagues, we could not fee. The coaft on the farther fide of it, coming up from the bottom, trends firft to the S. and S. S. W. and then to the S. W. by W. towards the fouth extremity of the island.

Off this fouthern extremity, which Dampier calls the fouth-eaft by miftake, the fouth-eaft