some remarkable
peaks. We had been informed by him, that the greater part of the coast
between Weary Bay and Endeavour River, including the Hope Islands, had
been altered from his original survey, a tracing of which he had
furnished us with previous to leaving Sydney. The few bearings we
obtained while at anchor, induced us to consider it correct, a fact we
further proved during the early part of the next day's run, as the course
steered from our anchorage North by West 1/2 West, carried us a little
more than a mile west of the Hope Islands. Had their assigned position in
the chart been correct, our course would have led us right over the
western isle. On detecting this error, we found it necessary to re-survey
this part of the coast, and it affords me much pleasure, after so doing,
to be able to bear testimony to the extreme correctness of Captain King's
original chart above alluded to. Soon after passing the Hope Islands, we
saw the reef where Cook's vessel had so miraculous an escape, after
grinding on the rocks for 23 hours, as graphically described in his
voyages. It is called Endeavour Reef, from this circumstance.

CAPE BEDFORD.

Continuing on the same course, we passed three miles from Cape Bedford,
at 4 P.M. This is one of the most remarkable features on the coast, being
a bluff detached piece of tableland, surmounted by a singular low line of
cliffs, reminding me forcibly of the lava-capped hills on the river Santa
Cruz, in eastern Patagonia. As far as I could judge, by the aid of a good
glass, it seemed to be composed of a mixture of red sand and ironstone,
of a very deep red hue, bearing a great similarity to the country on the
North-West coast, in latitude 15 1/4 degrees South.

Leaving Cape Bedford, we went in search of a shoal laid down by H.M.S.
Victor, as lying two miles to the West-South-West of Three Isles. Both
Captain King and Lieutenant Roe had expressed a doubt of its existence in
the position marked, a doubt which our researches fully justified; and
therefore, as it at present stands, it should be expunged from the chart.
From thence we steered north for Lizard Island, the remarkable peak on
which soon rose in sight; this course took us within three miles of Cape
Flattery, where a couple of peaks, with a slope between them, render it a
conspicuous headland.

About seven miles west from thence, there is a strange alteration in the
appearance of the country, changing from moderately high conica