During this interval,[82] the wind was mostly in the S.W. quarter. Sometimes it blew fresh, and in squalls; but for the most part a gentle breeze. The calms were few, and of short duration. Between the latitude of 12° and of 7° N., the weather was generally dark and gloomy, with frequent rains, which enabled us to save as much water as filled most of our empty casks.
[Footnote 82: On the 18th, I sunk a bucket with a thermometer seventy fathoms below the surface of the sea, where it remained two minutes; and it took three minutes more to haul it up. The mercury in the thermometer was at 66, which before, in the air, stood at 78, and in the surface of the sea at 79. The water which came up in the bucket, contained, by Mr Cavendish's table, 1/25, 7 part salt; and that at the surface of the sea 1/29, 4. As this last was taken up after a smart shower of rain, it might be lighter on that account.--Captain Cook's log-book.]
These rains, and the close sultry weather accompanying them, too often bring on sickness in this passage. Every bad consequence, at least, is to be apprehended from them; and commanders of ships cannot be too much upon their guard, by purifying the air between decks with fires and smoke, and by obliging the people to dry their clothes at every opportunity. These precautions were constantly observed on board the Resolution[83] and Discovery; and we certainly profited by them, for we had now fewer sick than on either of my former voyages. We had, however, the mortification to find our ship exceedingly leaky in all her upper works. The hot and sultry weather we had just passed through, had opened her seams, which had been badly caulked at first, so wide, that they admitted the rain-water through as it fell. There was hardly a man that could lie dry in his bed; and the officers in the gun-room were all driven out of their cabins, by the water that came through the sides. The sails in the sail-room got wet; and before we had weather to dry them, many of them were much damaged, and a great expence of canvas and of time became necessary to make them in some degree serviceable. Having experienced the same defect in our sail-rooms on my late voyage, it had been represented to the yard-officers, who undertook to remove it. But it did not appear to me that any thing had been done to remedy the complaint. To repair these defects the caulkers were set to work, as soon as we got into fair and settled weather, to caulk the decks and inside weather-works of the ship; for I would not trust them over the sides while we were at sea.
[Footnote 83: The particulars are mentioned in his log-book. On the 14th of August a fire was made in the well, to air the ship below. On the 15th, the spare sails were aired upon deck, and a fire made to air the sail-room. On the 17th, cleaned and smoked betwixt decks, and the bread-room aired with fires. On the 21st, cleaned and smoked betwixt decks; and on the 22d, the men's bedding was spread on deck to air.--D.]
On the first of September[84] we crossed the equator, in the longitude of 27° 38' W., with a fine gale at S.E. by S.; and notwithstanding my apprehensions of falling in with the coast of Brazil in stretching to the S.W., I kept the ship a full point from the wind. However, I found my fears were ill-grounded; for on drawing near that coast, we met with the wind more and more easterly; so that, by the time we were in the latitude of 10° S., we could make a south-easterly course good.
[Footnote 84: The afternoon, as appears from Mr Anderson's Journal, was spent in performing the old and ridiculous ceremony of ducking those who had not crossed the equator before. Though Captain Cook did not suppress the custom, he thought it too trifling to deserve the least mention of it in his Journal, or even in his log-book. Pernetty, the writer of Bougainville's Voyage to the Falkland Islands, in 1763 and 1764, thought differently; for his account of the celebration of this childish festival on board his ship, is extended through seventeen pages, and makes the subject of an entire chapter, under the title of Baptême de la Ligne.
It may be worth while to transcribe his introduction to the description of it. "C'est un usage qui ne remonte pas plus haut que ce voyage célébre de Gama, qui a fourni au Camoens le sujet de la Lusiade. L'idée qu'on ne sçauroit être un bon marin, sans avoir traversé l'Equateur, l'ennui inséparable d'une longue navigation, un certain esprit republicain qui regne dans toutes les petites societés, peut-être toutes ces causes reunies, ont pu donner naissance à ces especes de saturnales. Quoiqu'il en soi, elles furent adoptées, en un instant, dans toutes les nations, et les hommes les plus eclairés furent obligés de se soumettre à une coutume dont ils reconnoissoient l'absurdité. Car, partout, dès que le peuple parle, il faut que le sage se mette à l'unison."--Histoire d'un Voyage aux Isles Malouines, p. 107, 108.--D.]
On the 8th, we were in the latitude of 8° 57' S.; which is a little to the southward of Cape St Augustine, on the coast of Brazil. Our longitude, deduced from a very great number of lunar observations, was 34° 16' W.; and by the watch, 34° 47'. The former is 1° 43', and the latter 2° 14' more westerly than the island of Fernando de Noronha, the situation of which was pretty well determined during my late voyage. Hence I concluded that we could not now be farther from the continent than twenty or thirty leagues at most; and perhaps not much less, as we neither had soundings nor any other signs of land. Dr Halley, however, in his voyage, published by Mr Dalrymple, tells us,[85] that "he made no more than one hundred and two miles, meridian distance, from the island [Fernando de Noronha] to the coast of Brazil;" and seems to think that "currents could not be the whole cause" of his making so little. But I rather think that he was mistaken, and that the currents had hurried him far to the westward of his intended course. This was, in some measure, confirmed by our own observations; for we had found, during three or four days preceding the 8th, that the currents set to the westward; and, during the last twenty-four hours, it had set strong to the northward, as we experienced a difference of twenty-nine miles between our observed latitude and that by dead reckoning. Upon the whole, till some better astronomical observations are made on shore on the eastern coast of Brazil, I shall conclude that its longitude is thirty-five degrees and a half, or thirty-six degrees W., at most.
[Footnote 85: Page 11.]
We proceeded on our voyage, without meeting with any thing of note, till the 6th of October. Being then in the latitude of 35° 15' S., longitude 7° 45' W., we met with light airs and calms by turns, for three days successively. We had, for some days before, seen albatrosses, pintadoes, and other petrels; and here we saw three penguins, which occasioned us to sound; but we found no ground with a line of one hundred and fifty fathoms. We put a boat in the water, and shot a few birds; one of which was a black petrel, about the size of a crow, and, except as to the bill and feet, very like one. It had a few white feathers under the throat; and the under-side of the quill-feathers were of an ash-colour. All the other feathers were jet black, as also the bill and legs.
On the 8th, in the evening, one of those birds which sailors call noddies, settled on our rigging, and was caught. It was something larger than an English black-bird, and nearly as black, except the upper part of the head, which was white, looking as if it were powdered; the whitest feathers growing out from the base of the upper bill, from which they gradually assumed a darker colour, to about the middle of the upper part of the neck, where the white shade was lost in the black, without being divided by any line. It was web-footed; had black legs and a black bill, which was long, and not unlike that of a curlew. It is said these birds never fly far from land. We knew of none nearer the station we were in, than Gough's or Richmond Island, from which our distance could not be less than one hundred leagues. But it must be observed that the Atlantic Ocean, to the southward of this latitude, has been but little frequented; so that there may be more islands there than we are acquainted with.