Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 2.djvu/103

 8g SURVEY O1 TI-IB INTERTROPICAL levi. Several whales, of that species called 'by ,us. l?. whalers "fin-backs," were playing about us all day, and during the morning two or three were seen near the vessel lashing the water with their enormous fins and tails, and leaping at intervals out of the sea, which foamed around them for a considerable distance. After anchoring, the wind was variable and light from the western quarter, but during the night there was a heavy swell. The flood-tide, which commenced at nine o'clock, when the depth was twenty-eight fathoms, gradually ran stronger until midnight, when its rate was two miles per hour: high water took place at 3h. lb' a.m., or at twelve minutes before the moon passed her meridian; the rise being thirty,six feet. la We were underweigh before six o'clock the next morning, and, after steering 'by the wind for a short t/me towards the southward, (on which course the tide being against us we were making no progress,) bore up with the inten- tion of hauling round the point to leeward for anchorage, whence we might examine the place by the means of our boats, and wait for more yourable weather; but upon reaching within half a mile of the point, we found that a shoal corn: municatiou extended across to a string of islands projecting several miles to sea in a

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