Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/353

Torres' Strait.]

At ten o'clock, the top of the largest island bore S. 74° E. five or six miles, we had reefs at the distance of half a mile to a mile on each beam, and I then found that we were to the south of the Investigator's track; but the channel being clear a-head, and taking a direction nearly straight for Cape York, I steered onward, being rather pleased than sorry at having thus got by accident into a new route. Darnley's Island was seen from the mast head before eleven; and when the top of Murray's Island bore E. 1° S. it was set at N.N.W., the depth being then 52 fathoms on a bottom of small stones, coral, and shells. The great line of reefs which had been kept on the larbord beam of the Investigator, was now on the starbord beam of the schooner; but we had also a great mass of reefs on the other side, forming between them a kind of channel from two to four miles broad, leading south-westward. We ran on at the rate of five knots until noon, when the depth was 25 fathoms, soft sand, and our situation as under,

The channel was now five or six miles wide, and no interruption yet appeared; but breakers were seen a-head before two o'clock, and seemed to connect the reefs to leeward with those on the weather side; and there being a small opening on the starbord beam, we bore away north-west through it, towards the Investigator's track. Other reefs, however, obstructed the way, upon one of which was a dry bank; and seeing a sort of middle channel within them, we hauled up W. by S. into it, and afterwards S.W. The sea did not break upon these reefs, and the sun being on the starbord bow, prevented us from knowing how they lay to leeward. At four, the coral bottom was seen under the schooner, and the depth was no more than 2 fathoms; we tacked immediately, and in ten minutes were able to weather the end of the reef at the outlet of the middle