Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/140

 the Sulphur was employed upon the Swan River service, her crew were only 256 days upon fresh diet. A life of this description in any other climate, I have no hesitation in asserting, would have been productive of the most serious disease.

Cockburn Sound. In approaching the land keep the Haycock on Garden Island N. E. ½ N. (magnetic) till within 1½ miles of Garden Island, when you will have passed over the five fathoms’ bank, and will be in nine to eleven fathoms water; then steer to the northward, till the Challenger Buoy comes in one with the Stags and Spit Beacons: a pilot will then come on board, but you may safely run into Cockburn Sound by the chart, keeping the Challenger and Stags on the right hand, and the Middle Beacon and Flat Ledge on the left. The Snapper Buoy and Pointer Beacon show the south passage into Owen’s Anchorage or into Gage’s Roads. Not knowing if the buoys and pilots are complete in the channel into Cockburn Sound, it would be advisable for ships to make Rottnest Island; keep it on your right hand and run for Gage’s Roads, as off Fremantle you are sure of getting a pilot, when you may anchor either in the Roads or Owen’s Anchorage, according to the season. Owen’s Anchorage is good and safe at all seasons of the year; and, in my humble opinion, there is not the slightest necessity to go into Cockburn Sound, unless a ship requires to be hove down, when Port Royal will be found well adapted for that purpose; as his Majesty’s ship Success was hove keel out, during the most tempestuous winter (1830), and was never obliged to be rightened