Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/341

 occasions we saw turtles swimming just below the surface of the water. Sometimes the sea was covered with a thick floating yellow substance not unlike the brown "scum" which coats stagnant pools at home. Some of it was collected by letting down a bath sponge on a string. The microscope revealed it as a low form of animal life.

Frigate birds were not uncommon, and one night there came on board two lovely bright green "bee-eaters."

So the long sunny days slipped away, and towards sunset the misty coastal ranges became dim and unsubstantial in the dove-coloured evening light, while inshore one little white sail could be seen, that might have been the ghostly vessel of Captain Cook himself. Wednesday Island was passed the next morning. The islands here mark the days on which Captain Cook sighted and named them, and we entered the narrow Thursday Island Passage.

Thursday Island lies at the extreme northerly point of Australia, Cape York Peninsula, that juts out, and narrows into a point forming the eastern side of the Gulf of Carpentaria. To the north of it are the Torres Straits, to the south Prince of Wales and other islands, among them that Possession Island on which Captain Cook