Leaving our anchorage, we steered West 1/4 North, six miles, in soundings of 6 and 7 fathoms. We then crossed in 4 1/2 and 5 fathoms, North Wallis Island bearing South 75 minutes East, a ridge which appeared to be an elbow of the spit extending off the latter, and forming the south side of the channel. Continuing the same course, the depth soon increased to 6 and 7 fathoms. This was highly satisfactory, as it proved there was water for the largest vessels.* In the afternoon we anchored again under Booby Island.** (*Footnote. Captain Blackwood's recent survey of this Strait confirms my opinion of its being the best passage through this part of Torres Strait.) (**Footnote. The following is the extract from the game book referred to in a former page: Booby Island (June and August) 145 quails, 18 pigeons, 12 rails, of two kinds, 3 doves; Van Diemen's Inlet (July) 14 doves, 6 pigeons, 1 native companion; Bountiful Island (July) 8 quails, 11 doves, 1 pheasant, 3 plovers, 4 white cockatoos; Sweers Island (July) 151 quails, 87 doves, 20 pigeons, 3 pheasants, 8 white and 2 black cockatoos, 5 spurwing plovers; Disaster Inlet (July) 36 ducks, 9 white cockatoos, 2 native companions, 1 green ibis; on the coast (July) 10 curlews and plovers; Flinders River (July) 10 ducks, 5 rose-coloured cockatoos, 4 pigeons, 3 spurwing plovers, 1 rail of a new species, 1 white ibis, 1 spoonbill; Albert River (August) 20 ducks, 4 large water rails, 2 pheasants; between Van Diemen's Inlet and Flinders' River (August) 12 cockatoos, 1 kangaroo (Macropus unguifer); Wallis Isles (August) 6 quails, 6 doves, 1 pigeon.) LOOK FOR CAPE WESSEL. On the evening of the next day, the 17th, we weighed, and steered West by South across the Gulf; and in the afternoon of the 18th passed eleven miles from Cape Wessel, according to the position assigned to it in the chart: but as the weather was tolerably clear, and nothing was seen of it, there appeared to be some truth in the report I had previously heard of its being to the southward of the position given to it. The wind freshened by midnight, and, as usual, became more southerly, that is to say, South-South-East, whilst during the day it was generally East-South-East and East, and very much lighter. The current was steady at North-West by West from half a knot to three-quarters per hour, maintaining about the same direction and strength as in 1839. On the evening of the 19th we crossed the meridian of the centre of New Year Island, which our observations placed in 8 degrees 52 minutes west of Booby Island, one mile less than Flinders. RETURN TO PORT ESSINGTON. It was late in the afternoon of the 20th before we reached an anchorage off the settlement of Victoria, where we met Captain Stanley, who had just returned in the Britomart from a cruise in the Arafura Sea, of which the reader will find an interesting account, from his own pen, in the following chapter. CHAPTER 2.10. INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO.