[After this the course was W.S.W. for several days, and there is nothing worthy of note till Tuesday, the 18th of March, when the Victoria discovered Amsterdam Island.]
On the 18th of the said month (March), I took the sun in 491⁄2°, it had 2° 55′ declination, the latitude came to be 37° 35′, and whilst taking the sun we saw a very high island, and we went towards it to anchor, and we could not fetch it; and we struck the sails and lay to until next day, and the wind was W.; and we made another tack to the north under storm sails;[449] and this was on the 19th, and we could not take the sun; we were east and west with the island, and it is in 38°[450] to the south, and it appears that it is uninhabited, and it has no trees at all, and it has a circumference of a matter of six leagues.
On the 20th of the said month, Thursday, I did not take the sun, but we were east and west with the island, and we went to N.W. and to N.N.W. and 1⁄4 N.W., and for the whole course I put down a matter of 15 leagues to the N.N.W., and in the latitude of 351⁄2°.
On the 22nd of the said month I took the sun in 501⁄4°: it had 4° 27′ declination; the latitude came to 36° 18′. The day before we had struck the sails until the morning of the said Saturday, and this day we set sail and went to the N.W.
•• •••
On the 8th of the said month (May) I did not take the sun; but, according to the run we had made, we thought we were ahead of the Cape, and on this day we saw land, and the coast runs N.E. and S.W. and a quarter east and west; and so we saw that we were behind the Cape a matter of 160 leagues, and opposite the river Del Infante,[451] eight leagues distant from it in the offing; and this day we were lying to with winds from the west and west-north-west, and it was Thursday.
On the 9th I did not take the sun, but we made land and anchored, and the coast was very wild, and we remained thus till next day; and the wind shifted to W.S.W., and upon that we set sail, and we went along the coast to find some port for anchoring and taking refreshments for the people who were most suffering, which we did not find. And we stood out to sea, to be at our ease; and we saw many smokes along the coast, and the coast was very bare, without any trees, and this coast runs N.E. and S.W.: it is in 33° latitude, and it was Saturday, 10th of May.
Het Eyland Amsterdam.
