State Library of NSW
[Page 428]
324 off Timor
which were several ashore our Croakers began now to talk of the westerly monsoon & say that they had sometime thought that the unusual Briskness of the Trade wind for some days before we fell in with this Island was a sure prognostick of it
14 Our Westerly wind still continued & we plyd with our usual success infinite albecores & bonetos were about the ship attended (as they always are when near land) by some species of Sterna these were Dampiers New Holland Noddies which flew in large flocks hovering over the shoals of fish Many Man of War birds also attended & Entertaind us by very frequently stooping at albecores so large that 20 times their strengh could not have lifted them had they been dextrous enough to seize them which they never once effected
15. Wind came fair today & left our melancholy ones to search for some new occasion of sorrow There was much less of it than we could have wishd & yet enough to alter the appearance of the countrey very sensibly the Island was now Hilly tho not near so high as it had been the Hills in general came quite down to the
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