Quotation from: The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765

Written by: J.E. Heeres


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On the 27th do. in the evening, when it had got dark, the water suddenly
turned as white as butter-milk, a thing that none of those on board of us
had ever seen in their lives, and which greatly surprised us all, so
that, concluding it to be caused by a shallow of the sea, we set the
foresail and cast the lead, but since we got no bottom, and with the
rising moon the water again resumed its usual colour, we made all sail
and ran on full speed, satisfied that the strange colour had been caused
by the sky, which was very pale at the time. On the 28th in the morning
very early, the water became thick, and shortly after we sighted land,
being two islands, each of them about 2 miles in length; at 4 miles'
distance from the land we cast the lead in 65 fathom sandy bottom. At
noon in Latitude 8 deg., three miles off shore, we found ourselves to have
run too far to eastward, wherefore we held our course to westward up to
the 2nd of October, when by God's grace we passed the Princen islands,
and arrived off Bantham on the 9th do. By estimation the land of
d'Eendracht is marked in the chart fifty miles too far to eastward, which
should also be rectified...

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