o the southward of the island, and which is named
Ball's-pyramid, and has much the appearance of a church steeple
at a distance; but as you come near, it is exceedingly high and
perpendicular: we passed in the evening between the island and
the pyramid, and had 26 fathoms within two miles of Mount Gower,
over a rocky bottom. This island I judge to be about three miles
and a half long, north-north-west and south-south-east; it is
very narrow across. There is anchorage on both sides of it, but
the bottom is foul. On the west side there is a bay, off which
lies a reef parallel to the shore, with good swatches, or
passages through for boats; this reef breaks off the sea from the
shore, which is a fine sandy beach, so that there is no
difficulty in landing. I have observed before, that turtle are
sometimes caught here, and that there are many birds upon the
island.
On the 13th, at two o'clock in the morning, we made Norfolk
Island, which I did not expect we should have done quite so soon,
but the easterly current, which is commonly found here, had been
strong: we brought to till day-light, and then, as the wind was
fresh from the south-west, I well knew there could be no landing
in Sydney-bay, where the settlement is fixed, on account of the
high surf, which southerly winds occasion, I therefore bore away,
and ran round to the north-east side of the island into a bay
called Cascade-bay; where, after a few days of moderate weather,
and an off-shore wind, it is possible to land; but that only on
one spot, which is a rock that projects some distance into the
sea, and has deep water to it: on that rock I landed, on the
afternoon of the 13th, all the marines, and a considerable number
of the convicts, but being set to the eastward in the night, I
did not land the remainder until the 15th, when they were also
put on shore on the same place.
These people were no sooner on shore than the wind shifted to
the eastward, and the weather became hazy and blew strong, so
that I had no prospect of being able to land any part of the
provisions. We had put on shore from the Sirius and Supply 270
people, and had no opportunity of sending any stores with them,
as we were now driven out of sight of the island. I knew the
exhausted state of the stores there; I was also acquainted with
the many difficulties which Lieutenant Ball, commander of the
Supply, had met with in the different voyages he had made from
Port Jackson to this island, wit
|