and blew a horn. This we confidered as a fignal made to us,
either to warn us o f fome thoal, or to inform us that they would
fupply us with a Pilot: We therefore immediately fent our Cutter
to the boat, to know their intentions j when we were ioon convinced
o f our miftake, and found that this boat was the Commodore
of the whole fiihery, and that the fignal the had made, was
to order them all to leave off fiihing, and to return in ihore, which
we faw them inftantly obey. Being thus difappointed, we kept
on our courfe, and fhortly after paffed by two very fmall rocks,
which lay four or five miles diftant from the ihore. We were
now in hourly expedition of defcrying Pedro Blanco : But night
came on before we got fight of it, and we therefore brought to till
the morning, when we had the fatisfadion to dilcover it. Pedro
Blanco is a rock o f a fmall circumference, but o f a moderate
height, refembling a fugar-loaf, both in ihape and colour, and is
about feven or eight miles diftant from the ihore. W,e paifed
within a mile and a half of it, and left it between us and the
land, ft ill keeping on to the weftward ; and the next day, being
the 7th, we were a-breaft of a chain of Iflands, which ftretched
from Eaft to Weft. Thefe, as we afterwards found, were called
the Iflands o f Lem a ; they are rocky and barren, and are in all
fmall and great, fifteen or fixteen j but there are, befides, many
more between them and the main land o f China. A view of thofe
o f Lema is annexed, containing likewife a view of an Ifland lying
off Macao, called the grand Ladrone, as it appears when (R), the
weftermoft of the rocks o f Lema, bears W. N. W, at the diftance
,of a mile and a half.' We left thefe Iflands on the ftarboard-fide,
palling within four miles o f them, where we had twenty-four
fathom water. Being ftill furrounded by fiihing boats, we once
more fent the Cutter on board fome of them, to endeavour to pro-
- cure a Pilot, but we could not prevail ; however one of the Chinefe
direfted us by figns to fail-jround the weftermoft of the iflands or
■ rocks of Lema, and then to haul up. We followed this diredion,
and in the evening came to an anchor in eighteen fathom; at wbieh
time