Page 450
An.1687
A great Tree. Beacons set on Sholes.
the Bays of Campeachy and Honduras (as Captain Read himself, and many more of us had) and so were very expert at this work, undertook to fell it, taking their turns, 3 always cutting together : and they were one whole day, and half the next, be- fore they got it down. This Tree, though it grew in a Wood, was yet 18 foot in circumference, and 44 foot of clean body, without knot or branch : and even there it had no more than one or two branches, and then ran clean again 10 foot higher ; there it spread it self into many great limbs and branches like an Oak, very green and flourishing : yet it was perisht at the heart, which marr'd it for the service intended.
So leaving it, and having no more business here we weighed, and went from hence the next day, it being the 29th day of November. While we lay here we had some Tornadoes, one or two every day, and pretty fresh Land Winds which were at West. The Sea breezes were small and uncertain, sometimes out of the N. E. and so veering about to the East and South East. We had the Wind at North East when we weighed, and we steered off S. S. W. In the afternoon we saw a shole a head of us, and altered our course to the S. S. E. In the evening, at 4 a clock, we were close by another great shole: therefore we tackt, and stood in for the Island Celebes again; for fear of running on some of the sholes in the night. By day a Man might avoid them well enough, for they had all Beacons on them, like Huts built on tall Posts, above high-water mark, probably set up by the Natives of the Island Celebes, or those of some other neighbouring Islands; and I never saw any such elsewhere. In the night we had a violent Tornado out of the S. W. which lasted about an hour.
The