Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 1.djvu/341

Nuyts' Archipelago.]

flock of teal presented themselves, and four were shot. There were also pied shags, and gulls of three species; and in the island were seen many crows, a green paroquet, and two smaller birds. A black snake, of the common size, was killed, but its form did not bespeak it to be venemous. After observing the sun's altitude at noon, I returned on board with the intention of getting the ship under way, to examine more closely a bight in the coast near Point Bell; and then of returning to Petrel Bay in the Isle St. Francis, in order to obtain better observations for a base to my chart of this archipelago. At two o'clock, Mr. Brown and his party returned from the eastern island, bringing four kanguroos, of a different species to any before seen. Their size was not superior to that of a hare, and they were miserably thin, and infested with insects. No other than calcareous rock was seen upon the eastern island. It seemed to afford neither wood nor water, nor were there any marks of its having been visited by the natives of the continent; in which respects it resembled the western island, as it also did in its vegetation, and in being frequented by the sooty petrel. Mr. Brown's pocket thermometer stood at 125° when placed on the sand, and 98° in the shade; whilst on board the ship the height was only 83°.

The sun was too high at noon for its altitude to be taken from an artificial horizon, with a sextant; but by lying down upon the beach, I obtained it from the sea horizon, tolerably free from the refractive errors caused by the haze. The latitude of the north side of the western Isle of St. Peter, thus observed, was 32° 21¼′ south, and the longitude by time keepers, corrected as usual, 133° 29′ east. There was no set of tide past the ship; but from eight o'clock to noon, the water had risen about a foot by the shore.

The anchor was weighed on the return of the botanists, and we steered westward past the small island named Lound's, and as far as Purdie's Isles; when, having seen the whole line of the coast behind them, we hauled to the southward at six o'clock, for Petrel Bay; and at one in the morning came to, in 13 fathoms, near our former anchorage.