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At one o'clock in the morning, after the most happy and sweet sleep that ever men enjoyed, we weighed and continued to keep the east shore on board in very smooth water; when at last I found we were again open to the sea, the whole of the land to the westward that we had passed being an island which the pilot called Pulo Samow.
The winds were singularly light from the eastward, until we approached Timor, the South-West end of which we saw in the morning of the 15th,* when, after passing through Samow Strait, we anchored in 13 fathoms off Coepang; the flagstaff of Fort Concordia bearing South-South-East a quarter of a mile.
In passing the north-east end of Rottee a good lookout was kept for a 5-fathom patch, laid down in the Admiralty Chart as lying four miles east of it. Nothing, however, could be discovered of it; and close to the place we had 50 fathoms. The tides in Samow Strait run from one to two knots an hour, eight hours to the northward, and four in the opposite direction.
At the part of Samow I visited the people all understood it, which is very remarkable, as only a narrow strait separates the islands. In this state of ignorance they may perhaps be purposely kept. I here recognised several Australian shrubs and palms. The rock of which this port of Rottee is formed appeared of a madreporic nature, scattered about in huge blocks.
During the night we had a fresh wind from East-South-East and sailed through several ripplings, our first entering suddenly upon which caused some anxiety, though the lead gave no bottom with 60 and 70 fathoms. We passed some distance from the western end of Samow Island in the morning; but the high peaks of Timor were not seen till near noon.
He seemed scarcely able to conceive, even when assured by the evidence of his own senses, that it was possible for mountains to be so high and ranges so vast as those that now developed themselves before him. In crossing the mouth of Coepang Bay towards Samow, in the evening, the appearance was truly grand.
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