396
1767. to a part of the beach which was clear of wood, that the
.November., peQpje on boarcj might not be liable to mifshief from ene-
Tueflay 3. m ; e g whom they could, not fee ; I alfo ordered that, nobody.
fhould go on Ihore. When the Indians faw the boat come
to the beach, and obferved that nobody landed, one of them
came outi of the wood with a bow and. arrows in his hand,,
and made figns for the boat to come to the place where he
Rood. This the officer very prudently declined, as he would,
then have been within bow-ffiot o f an ambufcade, and after,
waiting fome time; and finding that a conference could be
procured upon no other terms, he returned back to the ffiip.
It was certainly in my. power to have deftroyed many o f
thefe unfriendly people, by firing my great.guns into the.
wood, but i t would have anfwered.no good purpofe: we
could not afterwards- have procured wood and water here,
without rifking the lofs o f our own people,, and I Hill.hoped,
that refre&ment might be procured upon friendly terms at
the town, which, now I was in a condition to defend myfelf
againft a. fudden afiault, I refolve.d to vilit..
Wed«r. 4, The next morning therefore» as foon as it was light; I.
failed from this place, which I called De ce it ful B ay-, with
a light land-breeze, and between ten and eleven o’clock we
got off the bay or nook, at the bottom o f which our boats
had difcovered the town and fort.. It happened; however
that juft at this-time the weather became thick, with heavy
rain, and it began to blow hard from a quarter which made
the land here a. lee, ihore 7. this obliged me to ftand off, and
having no time to lofe, I flood away to the weflward; that I
might reach Batavia before the feafan was paih.
I fhall now give a more particular account o f our navigating
the fea that waffies the coafts of this iiland, the rather
as Bampier’s defcription is in feveral particulars erroneous.
6 Having
Having feen the north eaft part of the iiland'on the
twenty-fixth of October, without certainly knowing whe- >— v-—
tber it was Mindanao or Saint John’s, we got nearer to it the.
next day, and made what we knew to be Saint. Auguftina,
the fouth eaftermoft part o f the iiland, which rifes in little
hummocks, that run down to a low point at the water s edge;
it bears N. 40 E. at the diftance of two and twenty leagues
from a little iiland, which is diftinguiffied from the other,
iilands that lie off the fouthermoft point of. Mindanao by a,
hill or hummock, and which for that reafon I called H umm
o c k I s l a n d . All this land- is very high, one ridge of-
mountains riling behind another, fo that at a great diftance
it appears not like one iiland but feveral. After our firft-
difcovery o f the iiland, we kept turning, along the eaft fide
from the northward to Cape Saint Auguftina, nearly S, by W.
4. W. and N. by. E. t E. for about twenty leagues. The
wind was to the fouthward along the ihore, and as we approached
the land,, we flood in for an opening which had.
the appearance of a good bay, where we intended to anchor;.
but we found that it was too deep for our purpofe,,
and that fome ffioals rendered the entrance o f it dangerous.
To this bay, which lies about eight or ten leagues-N. by E.'
from Cape Saint Auguftina,, the fouth eaft extremity o f
the iiland, I gave the name of. D i s a p p o i n t m e n t B a y .
When we were in the offing Handing in for this bay, we
obferved a large hummock, which had the appearance of'
an iiland, but which I believe to be a peninfula, joined by
a low ifthmus to- the main; this hummock formed the
northermoft part o f the entrance, and1 another high bluff
point oppofite to it formed the fouthermoft part; be_.
tween thefe two points are the ffioals that have been mentioned
; and feveral fmall iilands, only one o f which can be
feen till, they are approached.very near. On this-part o f the.
coafti