Islands page 143.)

WEIGH AND GRAZE ON A ROCK.

February 10.

The weather was thick and gloomy, and it rained fast; but, having
completed our survey and observations, and the wind being favourable, it
was resolved to get underweigh without further loss of time.

In the very act of weighing, the ship's keel grazed a sunken rock, of the
existence of which, though we had sounded the bay, we had been, till that
moment, in ignorance! He only who has felt the almost animated shudder
that runs through the seemingly doomed ship at that fearful moment, can
understand with what gratitude we hailed our escape from the treacherous
foe.

In passing out, we named two low small rocky islands, lying north of
Point Swan, and hitherto unhonoured with any particular denomination, the
Twins. It should be noted, that the tide did not begin to make to the
southward till 8 hours 15 minutes A.M., being full half an hour after
low-water by the shore. We passed through several tide races; not,
however, feeling their full force, owing to our encountering them at the
time of slack water. In every case our soundings indicated great
irregularity of bottom, the cause to which I have already assigned these
impediments to in-shore navigation.

SUNDAY STRAIT.

We found a temporary anchorage the same morning, on the east side of the
large group forming the eastern side of Sunday Strait; so named by
Captain King, who was drifted in and out of it on that day, August 19th,
1821, amid an accumulation of perils that will long render the first
navigation of this dangerous Archipelago a memorable event in the annals
of nautical hardihood.

ROE'S GROUP.

This group we called after Lieutenant Roe, R.N., Surveyor-General of
Western Australia, who had accompanied Captain King in that perilous
voyage, and whose valuable information had enabled us to escape so many
of the dangers to which our predecessors had been exposed.

Nothing could exceed the desolate appearance of the land near which we
were now lying: rocks, of a primitive character, massed together in all
the variety of an irregularity, that rather reminded the beholder of
Nature's ruin than her grandeur, rose, drear and desolate, above the
surrounding waters; no trees shaded their riven sides, but the
water-loving mangrove clothed the base of this sterile island, and a
coarse, wiry grass was thinly spread over its sides.

MIAGO AND HIS FRIENDS.

Soon after we had anchored, some natives were