deep, hoarse, clanging, and,
though a short, yet an inflected voice. In size it was rather less than
our tame geese, and lived upon grass. The flesh was excellent.

Early in the morning of the first of November they left the Swan Isles,
steering to the westward along shore. At nine o'clock the north coast of
Van Diemen's land lay extended from about SE by E to West, the nearest
part of it being distant two and a half or three miles. Its general
trending seemed to be about ESE and WNW with a small island lying off the
western extreme. The shores were chiefly beaches, the front land was of a
moderate height, the back was mountainous. One ridge of mountains that
bore south was very high and rugged, and from the white patches in it was
concluded to be rocky and barren.

If any judgment could be hazarded of the quality of the country, at the
distance the sloop was at, it might be supposed, from the beauty of the
lower head-land, to be somewhat above mediocrity. Extensive tracts of
open ground that come down towards the sea in gradual green slopes were
varied by clumps of wood and large single trees.

A column of smoke that arose some few miles inland, was the only sign of
its being inhabited.

At noon the latitude was 40 degrees 44 minutes 08 seconds, the peak of
Cape Barren Island then in sight. At this time they were two miles to
the westward of the small island, which was low and rocky, lying about
two miles and a half off a sharp, sandy point, with which it was nearly
connected by some lumps of rock that almost closed up the passage.
A long curved line of ripple extended to the northward.

The aspect of the low land here became less pleasing, the mountains
approaching nearer to the sea, and the country appearing to be more
wooded. The coast seemed inclined to a more southerly direction, and the
western extremity, which bore SW by W, appeared broken, like Islands.
At five in the afternoon they anchored two miles and a half to the
westward of the small island, it being calm, and the tide of ebb setting
the vessel to the Northward.

They weighed at nine the next morning with an easterly wind, and steered
in towards a small break that presented itself in the bottom of an
extensive but not deep bay, or rather bight, lying between the two
extremes then in view. The break was not sufficiently distinct to have
justified in itself alone a reasonable supposition of an inlet, but that
it was corroborated by the direction of t