Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1.: With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During; The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43.; By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative; Of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea.Stokes, John Lort
History
Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1.: With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During; The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43.; By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative; Of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea.
Stokes, John Lort
Australia -- Description and travel; Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Natural history -- Australia
On the 20th of June we took leave of our friends in Western Australia,
proceeding out of Owen's anchorage by a passage recommended by the
Harbour-Master, in which we found half a fathom less water than the one
through which we entered. During our stay there, nothing could exceed the
kindness with which we were welcomed, and we experienced that proverbial
hospitality of colonists which in this instance we shall ever remember
with feelings of the most sincere and heart-felt pleasure.
It may appear out of place inserting it here but on our first arrival at
Swan River in November last, we saw the Aurora Australis very bright.
At midnight of the 23rd of June we passed Cape Leeuwin, the south-western
extremity of the continent; named by the first discoverer in 1622, Landt
van de Leeuwin or the land of Lions. The wind which had increased since
the morning to a fresh gale from the northward, now suddenly veered round
to the westward, accompanied with rain and causing a high cross-sea.
GALE OFF CAPE LEEUWIN.
These sudden shifts of wind frequently raise a very dangerous sea off
Cape Leeuwin.* This made the third gale we had experienced since the 30th
of May, and is recorded here from its commencing at North-East instead of
at north, the usual point at which gales in these regions begin. During
the stormy weather which prevailed throughout the passage, we were
unceasingly attended by those majestic birds and monarchs of the
ocean--the White Albatross (Diomedia exulans) which with steadily
expanded wings sailed gracefully over the surface of the restless main in
solemn silence, like spectres of the deep; their calm and easy flight
coursing each wave in its hurried career seemed to mock the unsteady
motion of our little vessel as she alternately traversed the deep hollows
and lofty summits of the high-crested seas.
(*Footnote. In a gale off this Cape in 1836, H.M.S. Zebra was compelled
to throw her guns overboard.)
July 6.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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