ds; the innermost in particular, which lay at some
distance from the nearest point of the main, was burnt in patches upon
different parts of it. It must have been effected either by lightning, or
by the hand of man; but it was so much unlike the usual effects of the
former, that, with all its difficulties, they chose to attribute it to
the latter cause.

A great smoke that arose at the back of one of the bights showed the main
to be inhabited; but they could not suppose the people of this place to
be furnished with canoes, when those of Adventure Bay, in their
neighbourhood, were unprovided with them. Nothing, therefore, was left to
their choice, but to allow that they might transport themselves over,
either upon logs of wood, or by swimming across: and, as the most
probable reward of such an exertion would be the capture of birds, whilst
breeding, or the seizure of their eggs, the utility of spreading fires in
facilitating such operations is obvious.

The south cape may be easily distinguished from any other projection in
its vicinity. Besides being the southernmost, it is a promontory making
like a foreland, and sloping very gradually as it runs towards the sea,
where it ends in a perpendicular cliff.

About sunset the fresh NW wind died away suddenly; and a strong squall
from the westward, with thunder, lightning, and heavy rain, soon carried
them round the south cape, and, by dark, brought them off what was
formerly called Storm Bay, where they hauled to the wind with the sloop's
head up the bay, intending, in the morning, to proceed by this Storm Bay
passage into the Derwent river.

The night was squally, and by day light the next morning (the 14th), it
was found that the vessel had drifted across the mouth of Storm Bay, or
more properly Storm Bay Passage. Tasman's Head, its eastern point, bore
NE distant three miles. Being too far to leeward to fetch up the passage,
and the gale continuing, they bore away round Tasman's Head, and hauled
up along shore for Adventure Bay.

Nothing remarkable was observed about Tasman's Head, except two
small islands lying off it, at the distance of half or three quarters
of a mile; and close to them were the two conical basaltic rocks
named by Captain Furneaux the Friars. The vegetation upon the inner
most of the two small islands had been burnt in a manner similar to that
on the De Witt's isles. If it were possible to account for those fires in
any other way than by the agency