In the course of our run, we passed numerous volcanic mountains; and when in the 123rd degree of longitude, two islands attracted special attention. One, Comba, of a conical shape, had all day been shooting up vast volumes of smoke. After dark, when at the distance of a couple of miles, we opened out the eastern side and observed the crater boiling over in immense masses, rolling down the side of the mountain, losing none of its brightness until it reached the sea, boiling the water. [Illustration: _Comba._] After passing Timor, and shaping a course more to the south-east, between the two small islands of Babi and Kambing (Pig and Goat), leaving Welta on our port side, we steered for Port Essington. A strong current set us to the westward. When working up the Australian coast, we were boarded by a canoe, with a crew of six of the veriest-looking savages we had yet beheld. [Sidenote: Nov. 11.] One pair of trousers, the only article of apparel between them. The then wearer announced himself, in tolerable English, as one of the tribe attached to the settlement of Port Essington. [Sidenote: Nov. 12.] We came to on the evening of November 12, in the outer anchorage, and communicated to Captain M‘Arthur, then in command of the Royal Marines, the agreeable and unexpected intelligence that we were come to remove them. While the garrison rejoiced, the natives, especially the women, showed their grief by cutting their heads and faces with sharp flints, and otherwise disfiguring their already unprepossessing persons. Port Essington is situated on Coburg Peninsula, at the most northern part of Australia. It was discovered by Captain Philip King, in his survey between the years of 1818 and 1821; and formed, after the settlements of Melville Island and Raffles Bay had been abandoned, a harbour of refuge for vessels bound through Torres Straits, as well as a convenient place for holding commercial intercourse with the Eastern Archipelago. The settlement was established by Captain Sir J. Gordon Bremer in the _Alligator_, assisted by Commander Owen Stanley in the _Britomart_ in October 1838. They named the town Victoria: it consisted of a few wooden houses and small huts, sufficient for the accommodation of the garrison, built near the head of the harbour, some sixteen miles from the entrance. A better site might have been selected nearer the sea, which would have been cooler, and better supplied with water. [Illustration: Mæander _off Port Essington_.] A deeper anchorage, too, might have been considered; although, for convenience, we took the _Mæander_ up off the settlement, we were much too near the bottom had it been the stormy season. The country about Port Essington is undulating; there are ranges of hills 10 or 15 miles from the settlement, rising to about 450 feet, visible from the harbour.