Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2: Discoveries in Australia; 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 SeaStokes, John Lort
History
Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2: Discoveries in Australia; 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
It was now necessary to resume our examination of the Abrolhos, and
thirty-one miles on a West 1/4 South course, brought us between two
groups of them, where we anchored for the night in 23 fathoms. The
soundings in standing across Geelvink Channel, were 22 and 26 fathoms,
fine white sand; the current ran North-North-West, a mile an hour.
April 11.
At daylight we found that the summit of a large island, in the centre of
the group to the northward, bore North 21 1/2 degrees West about nine
miles.
GOOD FRIDAY HARBOUR.
We now beat to the southward in search of a harbour, where the ship might
lie in safety whilst we went to work with the boats, and were fortunate
enough to discover one close to the north-east point of a large island
lying in the centre of the group to the southward; which we named Easter
Group, and the harbour Good Friday Harbour, to commemorate the season of
the Christian year, at which we visited it. Perhaps at some future
period, when the light of the gospel shall have penetrated to every part
of the vast Australian continent, these sacred names, bestowed by us upon
some of its outworks, may be pronounced with pleasure, as commemorative
of the time when the darkness of ignorance and superstition was just
beginning to disperse.
Good Friday Harbour, like all coral harbours, requires to be taken by
eye, being full of coral knolls, which necessitate the utmost vigilance.
In itself, however, it is an excellent port, capable of holding a large
number of ships, and with a general depth, between the coral patches, of
from 15 to 17 fathoms, with a fine muddy sandy bottom. The eastern
extremity of the large island bearing South by East 1/2 East led into the
harbour. As we threaded our way among the patches of coral, the view from
the masthead of the submarine forests through the still pellucid water
was very striking. The dark blue of the deep portions of the lagoon
contrasted beautifully with the various patches of light colours
interspersed.
We found to our surprise that the group into which we had penetrated was
entirely distinct from that under which we had first anchored to the
southward, so that we had already discovered the Abrolhos to form three
separate groups.
RAT ISLAND.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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