Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/165

Wellesley's Islands.]

who seemed to wait in expectation of being visited; but our soundings diminishing to 3 fathoms, and the master having still less, we stood out and were followed by the boat. The wind was then at N.E.; and Isle Pisonia being brought to bear N.W. at nine o'clock, we tacked and weathered it nearly a mile, carrying from 9 to 13 fathoms water. Turtle tracks were very distinguishable upon the beach, but these prognostics, once so much desired, did not now interest us; however, on the wind becoming so light that we could not weather some breakers whilst the lee tide was running, the stream anchor was dropped in 9 fathoms, and I went to the island with the botanical gentlemen.

More holes were scratched in the sand here by the turtle, than even upon the island last quitted; and several of the poor animals were lying dead on their backs. The isle is nothing more than a high sand bank upon a basis of coral rock, which has become thickly covered with wood, and much resembles several of the smaller isles in Torres' Strait. There was no trace of former visitors, though it is not more than four miles from the island where Indians had been seen in the morning; the tides probably run too strong in a narrow, four-fathom channel, close to Isle Pisonia, to be encountered by their rafts.

Next morning, the wind was at N.E.; and after weathering a reef which runs out three miles from the island under Cape Van Diemen, we closed in with the land, and steered westward along it with soundings from 9 to 4 fathoms. A low head with white cliffs was passed at nine o'clock, and proved to be the northernmost point of this land; beyond it the coast extended W. by S., in a long sandy beach, and the country was better clothed with trees than on the south side. At noon we came abreast of a low woody point, with a shoal running off, where the coast took a south-west direction; and our situation and bearings were then as under: