ed, however, in heaving
short, and hoisting the sails without starting it; but it soon after
tripped, and the cutter at the same time casting the wrong way, I was on
the point of ordering the cable to be cut from the bows, when the wind so
favoured us as to enable the cutter to weather the reef; all sail was
instantly made and happily we succeeded both in clearing the reef, which
we passed at the distance of a cables' length, and saving our anchor,
which was quickly hove up and secured.

After escaping this danger our course was directed to pass outside of
Noble Island, in our way to which four small wooded isles were left
inshore of our track, and named, at Mr. Roe's request, after Captain Sir
Christopher Cole, K.C.B. Between this group and Noble Island two dry
sands were observed. Cape Bowen, so named by Lieutenant Jeffreys, is a
remarkable projection in the hills, but not on the coast, for it rather
forms a bay. To the northward of it the hills fall back with some
appearance of a rivulet, but the sandy beach was traced from the
masthead, and the opening, if any, was suspected to be a stream
communicating with Ninian Bay. To the eastward of our course, abreast of
Point Barrow, is a shoal, s, about three miles long, whose rocks showed
their heads above the water; beyond this the weather was too hazy to
observe anything.

Point Barrow is eleven miles to the northward of Cape Bowen, and is a
narrow promontory forming the south head of a deep bay which I intended
to anchor in and examine; for it bore the name of PORT Ninian in
Lieutenant Jeffrey's chart; but on entering it our soundings rapidly
decreased to three and a half fathoms long before Point Barrow sheltered
us from the wind. After steering over to the north side and ascertaining
that the shoal water extended across the bay we stood out again, and
resumed a course along the most rugged and most stony land I ever saw;
the stones are all of rounded form and heaped up in a most extraordinary
and confused manner, as if it were effected by some extraordinary
convulsion of nature. Might they not have been of diluvian origin? This
promontory was named by Lieutenant Jeffreys, Cape Melville. At half past
one o'clock we passed between the straggling rocks which lie off the Cape
and Pipon Island; and as we hauled round Cape Melville into Bathurst Bay
the soundings suddenly decreased upon the edge of a bank, and our
endeavours to find anchorage here were unsuccessful; we the