dry flat and found the best
bower cable parted, and the anchor so far buried in the quicksand, that
it could not be raised. At ten o'clock the flood tide came rolling in,
and presently set the brig afloat; the anchor was then weighed with ease,
by means of a hawser previously bent to it, and the vessel rode by the
small bower, against a tide which ran at the strongest between four and
five knots.

WEDNESDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 1802

The Lady Nelson again took the ground at six in the morning. On sounding
over to the east shore, distant half a mile, I found a small channel
leading upwards, with four or five feet more water in it than where the
brig lay; the western shore was two miles distant over a silty flat,
which was dry at low water and level as a race ground.

At eleven, the flood came in, six or eight inches perpendicular, with a
roaring noise; and so soon as it had passed the brig, I set off with Mr.
Brown and Mr. Lacy in the whale boat, to follow it up the small channel
on the eastern shore; and having a fair wind we outran the tide and were
sometimes obliged to wait its rising before we could proceed. At the end
of six miles the small channel led across to the western side; and the
rare opportunity of a landing place induced me to pitch our tent there
for the night: two miles higher up, the whole breadth of the Sound was
reduced to half a mile.

The country here was a stiff, clayey flat, covered with grass, and seemed
to have been overflowed at spring tides; though the high water of this
day did not reach it by five feet. Three or four miles to the southward
there were some hills, whence I hoped to see the course of the stream up
to its termination; and having time before dark, we set off. The grass of
the plain was interspersed with a species of sensitive plant, whose
leaves curled up in, and about our footsteps in such a manner, that the
way we had come was for some time distinguishable. From the nearest of
the small hills, I set the bearings of Double and Pine Mounts, our tent,
and the brig at anchor, by which this station was fixed as in the chart;
but in order to reconcile the bearings, I found it necessary to allow 12 deg.
of east variation.

Towards Double Mount and Shoal-water Bay, the country consisted of
gently-rising hills and extensive plains, well covered with wood and
apparently fertile. The stream at the head of Broad Sound could not be
traced from hence more than three or four miles above the tent