four fathoms from the ſurface of the ſea, and is nearly perpendicular. On ſounding all around, at a boats length, we had thirty-five fathoms; and, at half a mile diſtance, fifty fathoms; and then no bottom, with an hundred fathoms of line. It ſhews itſelf, on every bearing of the compaſs, from a ſmall to a great diſtance, like a ſail under a jury-maſt. This rock is ſituated in Latitude 19° 4′ 30″ and Longitude, by obſervation of Sun and Moon, and chronometer, corrected, 111° 6′ 30″, bearing from the South Weſt end of Iſle Socoro, Weſt 15° North, by compaſs; diſtant forty-eight miles: the variation, 7° Eaſt. I leave the further deſcriptions of Iſles Socoro and Santo Berto, to my return and anchoring at the firſt mentioned iſle, when I had a better opportunity, and more time to make remarks.
At Rocka Partida was a prodigious quantity of fiſh, but we caught only few, as the ſharks deſtroyed our hooks and lines, and no one on board, but myſelf, had ever before ſeen them ſo ravenous. One of our men reaching over the gun-whale of the boat, a ſhark of eighteen or twenty feet in length, roſe out of the water to ſeize his hand, a circumſtance not uncommon at the Sandwich Iſles, where I have ſeen a large ſhark take hold of an outrigger of a canoe, and endeavour to overſet it. This was in ſome degree the caſe with our boat; a number of them continually ſeizing the ſteering oar, it became of no uſe, ſo that we were obliged to lay it in. The inhabitants of the rock were,