re deceiving, have
doubtless given birth to many of these non-existing shoals and islands.
Were charts to be published (one does exist in manuscript, in the
Hydrographical Office at the Admiralty) with all the islands and dangers
laid down that have been reported by good and respectable authorities,
the navigator would be in a constant fever of anxiety and alarm for the
safety of his vessel. The charts of the present day teem with examples of
this sort and many islands and reefs are laid down which have not been
seen since their first discovery, and which perhaps never existed at all,
unless, like Sabrina Island, they were thrown up by a submarine volcano,
and disappeared immediately afterwards.)

November 2.

And by the following noon we had passed the parallel of the southernmost
limit assigned to these redoubtable rocks.

When we were on the starboard tack two nights before, the cutter leaked
so much that we were upwards of an hour pumping out the water that had
collected in three hours.

On the 2nd of November we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn in 100 1/2
degrees East.

November 4.

And on the 4th in latitude 28 degrees the trade-wind ceased: the winds
were however variable between South and South-East until we reached the
latitude of 31 1/2 degrees and longitude 95 degrees 20 minutes; when the
wind veered by North-East to North-West and West-North-West and we made
rapid progress to the south-east. Between the parallels of 40 and 42
degrees, we had the wind always to the westward of North by East and
South by West, with the current uniformly setting to the northward,
sometimes at the rate of three-quarters of a mile per hour; to the
south-west of Cape Leeuwin it affected us more than one knot: scarcely
any easterly current was observed.

November 27.

On the 27th at eight p.m. we sounded in forty-eight fathoms.

November 28.

And at one o'clock the following morning saw the Black Pyramid and soon
after entered Bass Strait by the passage on the south side of King's
Island. After running into the latitude of Sea Elephant Bay on the east
side of King's Island, in an unsuccessful search after some rocks laid
down in the French charts but not noticed in those of Captain Flinders,
we bore up; and at eleven p.m. passed Sir Roger Curtis Island.

November 29.

And the next day cleared the strait.

1820. December 2.

On the 2nd we were off Mount Dromedary; and the wind blew strong from the
East, the weathe