However, We Kept Off The Island, And
Did Not Go So Fast But That We Could See Any Other Danger
Before we
came nigh it; for here might have been more islands not laid down in
my drafts besides this,
For I searched all the drafts I had, if
perchance I might find any island in the one which was not in the
others, but I could find none near us. When it was day we were
about five leagues off the land we saw; but, I believe, not above
five miles, or at most two leagues, off it when we first saw it in
the night.
This is a small island, but pretty high; I named it Providence.
About five leagues to the southward of this there is another island,
which is called William Scouten's Island, and laid down in our
drafts: it is a high island, and about twenty leagues big.
It was by mere providence that we missed the small island; for, had
not the wind come to west-south-west, and blown hard, so that we
steered east-north-east, we had been upon it by our course that we
steered before, if we could not have seen it. This morning we saw
many great trees and logs swim by us, which, it is probable, came
out of some great rivers on the main.
On the 16th we crossed the line, and found variation 6 degrees 26
minutes east. The 18th, by my observation at noon, we found that we
had had a current setting to the southward, and probably that drew
us in so nigh Scouten's Island.
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