Sunday, October 5th. It was our morning watch; when, soon after
the day began to break, a man on the forecastle called out, "Land ho!"
I had never heard the cry before, and did not know what it meant, (and
few would suspect what the words were, when hearing the strange
sound for the first time,) but I soon found, by the direction of all
eyes, that there was land stretching along on our weather beam. We
immediately took in studding-sails and hauled our wind, running in for
the land. This was done to determine our longitude; for by the
captain's chronometer we were in 25 deg. W., but by his observations
we were much farther, and he had been for some time in doubt whether
it was his chronometer or his sextant which was out of order. This
land-fall settled the matter, and the former instrument was condemned,
and, becoming still worse, was never afterwards used.
As we ran in towards the coast, we found that we were directly off
the port of Pernambuco, and could see with the telescope the roofs
of the houses, and one large church, and the town of Olinda. We ran
along by the mouth of the harbor, and saw a full-rigged brig going in.
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