Early Australian Voyages: Pelsart, Tasman, Dampier eBook

John Pinkerton
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 173 pages of information about Early Australian Voyages.

Early Australian Voyages: Pelsart, Tasman, Dampier eBook

John Pinkerton
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 173 pages of information about Early Australian Voyages.

There are also some green turtle weighing about two hundred pounds.  Of these we caught two, which the water ebbing had left behind a ledge of rock which they could not creep over.  These served all my company two days, and they were indifferent sweet meat.  Of the sharks we caught a great many, which our men ate very savourily.  Among them we caught one which was eleven feet long.  The space between its two eyes was twenty inches, and eighteen inches from one corner of his mouth to the other.  Its maw was like a leather sack, very thick, and so tough that a sharp knife could scarce cut it, in which we found the head and bones of a hippopotamus, the hairy lips of which were still sound and not putrified, and the jaw was also firm, out of which we plucked a great many teeth, two of them eight inches long and as big as a man’s thumb, small at one end, and a little crooked, the rest not above half so long.  The maw was full of jelly, which stank extremely.  However, I saved for awhile the teeth and the shark’s jaw.  The flesh of it was divided among my men, and they took care that no waste should be made of it.

It was the 7th of August when we came into Shark’s Bay, in which we anchored at three several places, and stayed at the first of them (on the west side of the bay) till the 11th, during which time we searched about, as I said, for fresh water, digging wells, but to no purpose.  However, we cut good store of firewood at this first anchoring-place, and my company were all here very well refreshed with raccoons, turtle, shark, and other fish, and some fowls, so that we were now all much brisker than when we came in hither.  Yet still I was for standing farther into the bay, partly because I had a mind to increase my stock of fresh water, which was begun to be low, and partly for the sake of discovering this part of the coast.  I was invited to go further by seeing from this anchoring-place all open before me, which therefore I designed to search before I left the bay.  So on the 11th about noon I steered further in, with an easy sail, because we had but shallow water.  We kept, therefore, good looking out for fear of shoals, sometimes shortening, sometimes deepening the water.  About two in the afternoon we saw the land ahead that makes the south of the bay, and before night we had again sholdings from that shore, and therefore shortened sail and stood off and on all night, under two top-sails, continually sounding, having never more than ten fathom, and seldom less than seven.  The water deepened and sholdened so very gently, that in heaving the lead five or six times we should scarce have a foot difference.  When we came into seven fathom either way, we presently went about.  From this south part of the bay we could not see the land from whence we came in the afternoon; and this land we found to be an island of three or four leagues long; but it appearing barren, I did not strive to go nearer it, and the rather because the winds

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Early Australian Voyages: Pelsart, Tasman, Dampier from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.