An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 2: An Account Of The English Colony In New South Wales, From Its First Settlement In 1788, To August 1801: With Remarks On The Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. Of The Native Inhabitants Of That Country. To Which Are Added, Some Particulars Of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From The Mss. Of Lieutenant-Governor King; And An Account Of The Voyage Performed By Captain Flinders And Mr. Bass.Collins, David
History
An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 2: An Account Of The English Colony In New South Wales, From Its First Settlement In 1788, To August 1801: With Remarks On The Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. Of The Native Inhabitants Of That Country. To Which Are Added, Some Particulars Of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From The Mss. Of Lieutenant-Governor King; And An Account Of The Voyage Performed By Captain Flinders And Mr. Bass.
Collins, David
New South Wales -- Description and travel
A column of smoke that arose some few miles inland, was the only sign of
its being inhabited.
At noon the latitude was 40 degrees 44 minutes 08 seconds, the peak of
Cape Barren Island then in sight. At this time they were two miles to
the westward of the small island, which was low and rocky, lying about
two miles and a half off a sharp, sandy point, with which it was nearly
connected by some lumps of rock that almost closed up the passage.
A long curved line of ripple extended to the northward.
The aspect of the low land here became less pleasing, the mountains
approaching nearer to the sea, and the country appearing to be more
wooded. The coast seemed inclined to a more southerly direction, and the
western extremity, which bore SW by W, appeared broken, like Islands.
At five in the afternoon they anchored two miles and a half to the
westward of the small island, it being calm, and the tide of ebb setting
the vessel to the Northward.
They weighed at nine the next morning with an easterly wind, and steered
in towards a small break that presented itself in the bottom of an
extensive but not deep bay, or rather bight, lying between the two
extremes then in view. The break was not sufficiently distinct to have
justified in itself alone a reasonable supposition of an inlet, but that
it was corroborated by the direction of the ebb tide, which, while the
sloop was at anchor, was observed to come from the SSW or directly out of
the bight, running at the rate of two miles and a half per hour. By noon,
it being ascertained that there was not any inlet, they bore away to the
Westward along the land.
Their distance from the shore did not exceed a mile and a half. The back
country consisted of high hummocky mountains, whose parallel edges were
lying elevated one above another to a considerable distance inland. The
land in front was woody and bushy, of a moderate height, but sandy.
At three in the afternoon they ran through between a sandy point, with
shoal water off it, and two islands. One of these, named Waterhouse Isle,
is between two and three miles in length, rather high, but level, and
covered with large wood. The other is small, low, rocky, and almost bare.
The coast now trended to the SSW the land sloping up gradually from the
sea to a moderate height, with more open than wooded ground, and but
little brush; but the soil appeared sandy, and the grass but thinly
grown. The hummocky mountains still retained their general figure in the
more interior parts.
As they proceeded, the shore no longer preserved any regular line of
direction, but fell back into sandy bights. Hauling off for the night, a
little to the westward of a small rocky and barren island, lying about
four miles from the land, at six o'clock the following morning they came
in with it again, near where they had left it the preceding evening, and
began their course along the shore, which trended to the SSW in an
irregular manner, with a sandy country at its back.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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