tempted to
move would have been madness. Here we were therefore once more kept
prisoners upon this dreary coast; the country was exactly similar to that
lying immediately to the north of it, with these two exceptions, that the
range of sandhills was less elevated, and that we could not here find
fresh water. The morning was passed in searching for it; in the middle of
the day I read a few appropriate chapters in the Bible to the men, and in
the afternoon I explored the country but discovered nothing whatever of
an interesting nature.

LAUNCH THE BOATS, AND ENTER NORTHERN MOUTH OF THE GASCOYNE. CHARACTER OF
THE COUNTRY.

March 18.

The wind was much lighter this morning and the surf not so heavy; we made
a successful attempt to launch the boats just before sunrise. The wind
still blew from the southward, and we found a heavy sea running outside.
The men however exerted all their energies and just before sunset we
reached the northern mouth of the Gascoyne, and found a very good passage
into it with twelve feet water at low ebb-tide; but the other boat, not
following our track, stuck fast on a sandbank, where she was soon left
high and dry, and the tide fell so fast that we had a great deal of
trouble in getting her afloat again.

BABBAGE ISLAND.

The bar once passed there are three and three and a half fathoms in this
land-locked creek even at low water; the portion of Babbage Island which
is between it and the sea appears to be nothing but a shifting bed of
sand, and the mainland a delta, covered with mangrove swamps and brackish
lagoons, at least for about a mile back.* We lay down upon the sand close
to the boats, which were left at anchor with a boat-keeper in each, and
found great difficulty in collecting driftwood enough to make our fires.

(*Footnote. In the year 1667 the Dutch Commodore Vlaming appears to have
visited these coasts and to have ascended a river which might have been
the Gascoyne. The account of his exploration is thus briefly given by
Flinders (Terra Australis volume 1 Introduction page 61) After relating
the arrival of his two ships off Cape Inscription at the north end of
Dirk Hartog's Island he proceeds:

No mention is made by Valentyn of the ships entering the road, nor of
their departure from it; but it should seem that they anchored on
February 4th. On the 5th Commodore Vlaming and the commander of the
Nyptang went with three boats to the shore, which proved to be an island.
They fou