n recovering the anchor the next morning without breaking it;
for during the night the anchor dragged and hooked a rock; on weighing
it, however, the rock proved to be rotten and broke away. The strait
between Legendre and Gidley Islands is full of shoals, which at daylight
being dry, were covered with immense flights of pelicans and other
water-fowl.

During the day and following night we were becalmed off the north side of
Legendre Island.

March 4.

The next day we passed round its South-East end, and, at sunset, anchored
in a deep bay. Off the South-East end of Legendre Island the sea is very
full of reefs and dry rocks, but between Hauy and Delambre Islands there
is a safe channel of nine and ten fathoms deep.

The bay in which we had anchored was called, at Mr. Roe's request,
Nickol's Bay; it is open only to the North-East, and affords safe
shelter, with good holding-ground. At the bottom of the bay, on both
sides of a projecting point of land, on which three round-backed hills
were conspicuous, the coast falls back, and forms two bights, the western
of which is backed by very low land, lined with mangroves; and may
probably contain a small rivulet: the other is smaller, but the land
behind it is higher than in the western bay, which of the two appears to
be of the most importance; but as the tide did not flow at a greater rate
than a quarter of a knot, very little was attached to any opening that
may exist there.

At this anchorage we experienced another squall, similar to that off Cape
Preston, but not so severe; the sand was blown over us from the shore,
although we were at least two miles distant from it.

March 5.

The next morning we steered to the eastward, along the land, and soon
after noon passed round Captain Baudin's Bezout Island; a projecting
point within it was named in compliment to my friend Aylmer Bourke
Lambert, Esquire; behind which a range of hills extends to the
South-South-East for five or six leagues, and then trends to the
eastward, toward a group of islands named by the French Forestier's
Archipelago, the principal of which is Depuch Island. Near this we
anchored in five fathoms sandy ground. Our course from Cape Lambert was
parallel with the beach, and although we were not more than from three to
five miles from it, yet it was so low that it could not be seen from the
deck; and even from the masthead it was but very indistinctly traced; nor
indeed is it quite certain that what w