ARANCE OF THE COUNTRY.

Roebuck Bay, so named to commemorate the name of Dampier's ship, is about
sixteen miles across: the southern shores are low, and extensive
sandbanks and mud flats are bared at low-water. Near the North-East point
of the bottom of this bay, is a curious range of low cliffs, from twenty
to thirty feet high, and strongly tinged with red, in such a manner as to
suggest that they must be highly impregnated with oxide of iron. In the
neighbourhood of these cliffs the country had a more fertile, or rather a
less desolate appearance, stretching out into extensive plains, lightly
timbered with various trees of the genus Eucalypti, while, on the south
shore of the bay, the mangroves were numerous.

Towards the afternoon we discovered a small inlet, being then about 30
miles from our former anchorage in Roebuck Bay. We steered directly for
it, and when within half a mile of its mouth, we had, at high-water, six
fathoms. From the masthead I could trace distinctly the course of this
inlet, which at this state of the tide appeared to be of great extent;
but the bar which locked its mouth, and over which the sea was breaking
very heavily, rendered it impossible to take a boat across without
evident risk, by which no real good would be obtained, as the rise and
fall of the tide, eighteen feet, on this low coast, was more than
sufficient to account for the imposing, though deceptive appearance of
this opening. From the main-top-gallant yard I was enabled to take an
almost bird's-eye view of the level country stretched apparently at my
feet. The shore, like the south side of Roebuck Bay, was fringed with
mangroves, while to the North-North-East lay an extensive plain, over
which the water seemed, at certain seasons of the year, to flow. The
country around, for miles, wore the appearance of an interminable and
boundless plain, with an almost imperceptible landward elevation, and
thickly wooded with stunted trees.

In sailing along this part of the coast we found several inaccuracies in
Captain King's chart, doubtless owing to the distant view with which he
was compelled to content himself, and to the unfavourable state of the
weather against which he had to contend. I was on deck nearly, indeed,
the whole of the night, baffled by flying clouds in my attempts to fix
our latitude by the stars: at length, however, I succeeded in
ascertaining it to be 17 degrees 40 minutes South.

January 23.

The morning was fine