Page:A voyage to New Holland - Dampier.djvu/196

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

right in towards the shore (which lies here south-south-west and north-north-east) and the ebb runs north-west by north. When the tides slackened we fished with hook and line, as we had already done in several places on this coast; on which in this voyage hitherto we had found but little tides: but by the height and strength and course of them hereabouts it should seem that if there be such a passage or strait going through eastward to the great South Sea, as I said one might suspect, one would expect to find the mouth of it somewhere between this place and Rosemary Island, which was the part of New Holland I came last from.

Next morning my men came aboard and brought a rundlet of brackish water which they got out of another well that they dug in a place a mile off, and about half as far from the shore; but this water was not fit to drink. However we all concluded that it would serve to boil our oatmeal, for burgoo, whereby we might save the remains of our other water for drinking, till we should get more; and accordingly the next day we brought aboard 4 hogsheads of it: but while we were at work about the well we were sadly pestered with the flies, which were more troublesome to us than the sun, though it shone clear and strong upon us all the while,