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58
BLIGH'S CAP.
[Chap. III.
1840
May 5.A sperm whale, a seal, and a shoal of porpoises were seen. Blowing a strong breeze, almost a gale, from the north-west, with thick weather, and at 5 p.m., being within twenty miles of an islet called "Bligh's Cap" by Cook, we rounded-to, under closereefed topsails, to wait for daylight and clearer weather to make the land. At 7h. 30m. p.m. we struck soundings in one hundred and fifteen fathoms, on a bank of fine black sand and small stones; and, during the night, the depth varied from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty-five fathoms.
May 6It was nearly nine o'clock the next morning before the weather cleared up so as to admit of our running for the islet, and before noon it again became so thick that we could not see more than two or three miles; yet such was our confidence in the accuracy of the positions assigned by our great navigator to all the places he discovered or visited, that we unhesitatingly pursued our course, and at a quarter past twelve the high and apparently inaccessible little rock was seen directly ahead of us; we passed very close by it, steering for Cape François of Kerguelen Island. When we had run the distance to within half a mile, the fog was so dense that we could scarcely see twice the length of the ship, and darkness coming on, we were obliged to haul off for the night, under easy sail. The soundings were in from seventy to eighty fathoms, rocky bottom; and in the morning Cape François was in sight five or six miles on our