trait,
Dampier's Strait, Pitt's Passage, and the Strait of Salayer; and arrived
at Batavia in _eighty-eight days_. I left Wreck Reef some time afterward,
in a small schooner of twenty-nine tons; took ten days to reach Torres'
Strait, three to pass through it, seventeen to reach Coepang Bay, and ten
more to pass the longitude of Java Head. Adding to these the eight days
to Wreck Reef, the passage from Port Jackson to Java Head was
_forty-eight days_, including various deviations and stoppages for
surveying; and it was principally made in a vessel which sailed no more
than four or five knots, when the Bridgewater would have gone six or
eight. The difference, nevertheless, in favour of Torres' Strait, was
forty days; so that it seems within bounds to say, that in going from
Port Jackson to India or the Cape of Good Hope, it offers an advantage
over the northern route of six weeks; and of four weeks in going from the
more eastern parts of the Great Ocean. In point of safety, I know not
whether Torres' Strait have not also the advantage; for although it be
certainly more dangerous than any one of the eastern passages, it is
doubtful whether it be more so than a four or six weeks extra navigation
amongst the straits and islands to the east and north of New Guinea,
where some new shoal, bank, or island is discovered by every vessel going
that way. For myself, I should not hesitate to prefer Torres' Strait,
were it only on this account; considering the long continuance of the
danger in one case, as being more than a counterbalance to the superior
degree of it in the other.

With respect to a passage through Torres' Strait in the opposite
direction--from the Indian Sea to the Great Ocean--it has not, to my
knowledge, been attempted; and I have some doubt of its practicability. A
ship would have an advantage in entering the strait by its least
dangerous side; but as the passage could be made only in December,
January, or February, the rainy squally weather which probably will then
prevail, would augment the danger from the reefs ten fold. The experiment
is therefore too hazardous for any except a ship on discovery; whose
business it is to encounter, and even to seek danger, when it may produce
any important benefit to geography and navigation.

BOOK III.

OCCURRENCES FROM THE TIME OF QUITTING PORT JACKSON, IN 1803,
ARRIVING IN ENGLAND IN 1810.

CHAPTER I.

Departure from Port Jackson in the Porpoise,
accompanied by the Bri