[Sidenote: Variation of the compass.]
8th of September.—At noon we weighed and sailed round the north end of Thistle Island, carrying seventeen fathoms, till the north end bore south; we then shoaled to ten and eleven, and one cast nine fathoms. On rounding the island we steered south, and anchored in eleven fathoms, soft bottom, about four hundred yards from the middle part of the island. The islands at this place are so situated as to form a capacious and secure anchorage, with passages among the islands in all directions. The latitude observed with an artificial horizon on shore, was 34º 22' 39" north; longitude by mean of two chronometers, agreeing nearly, 126º 2' 52" east. The tides run at the springs at the rate of three and four knots, the flood to the north north-east; the rise and fall is fifteen feet. Strong eddies are felt among the islands. The variation of the compass is 2º 30' westerly.
[Sidenote: Appearance of the Amherst Isles, from the top of a peaked island.]
On the 9th of September Captain Maxwell and a party went to the summit of a high peak, on an island to the south-east of the ships, in latitude 34º 20' north, and longitude 126º 6' east. From this spot, elevated about seven or eight hundred feet above the sea, the view of the islands was very striking: we endeavoured to number them, but our accounts varied, owing to the difficulty of estimating the number in the distant groups; it will serve, however, to give some idea of this splendid scene, to say that the lowest enumeration gave one hundred and twenty islands.
Many of these islands are large and high, almost all are cultivated, and their forms present an endless diversity.
High land was seen to rise above the distant islands in the east and north-east; this probably was the main land of Corea, for it seemed more extensive and connected than any group of islands we had seen.
[Sidenote: Difficulty of estimating the number of islands on this coast.]
We had now ran along upwards of two hundred miles of this coast, and at every part which we approached, the islands were no less thickly sown than here; so that our attempts to enumerate them all, or even to assign places on the chart to those which we passed the nearest to, became after a time quite hopeless.
[Sidenote: Winds and weather.]
During our stay upon the coast of Corea, between the 1st and 10th of September, the winds were principally from the northward; the weather was moderate and clear; and occasionally calm during the heat of the day.