effort to escape; but, finding that impossible, jumped overboard, and continued diving from one side of the canoe to the other, until they were taken. They trembled excessively, expressing a great deal of alarm, upon being brought on board, and made several attempts to escape. The captain inflicted upon the thief, a punishment, that he thought might be a useful admonition to the natives, in their future intercourse with white men, when, with his companion, he jumped overboard, apparently delighted, in having escaped so well. The number and enterprising character of the people, changed our purpose of attempting to obtain a supply of water, by digging wells. And, besides the above objection, it was to be expected that, in the performance of our duty, at the Mulgrave Islands, it would be necessary for us to explore the whole group, where, within so great a compass, our wants could scarcely fail to be supplied. Accordingly, in the evening, we made sail, and, after clearing the island, hauled up to the northward and westward. The inhabitants of Drummond's and Byron's Islands, were, in all respects, similar to each other, even to their canoes and sails, the latter of which was a coarse matting of grass. During our passage from Drummond's Island to the Mulgraves, which was of nine days' duration we had squally weather, and were constantly affected by violent currents, for which, as they were irregular, no allowance could be made. On the second day after our departure from Drummond's Island, our safety was considerably endangered from this cause. Being near a chain of small islands belonging to the Kingsmill Group, the weather thick and squally, we stretched off, calculating that, at meridian, on the following day, we should be thirty miles to the northward of them; but, to our surprise, when at meridian the weather cleared, and we got our observations, instead of being thirty miles to the northward, we were as much to the south, having been carried through them by a current at night. We were two or three days in the vicinity of the Mulgraves', laying to at night, and drifting with the current nearly as much as we advanced through the day, with light and baffling winds. On the evening of November, the nineteenth, the welcome hail of "Land! ho!" was given, and shortly afterwards it was seen from the deck, two leagues off. It proved to be the easternmost of the Mulgraves', for which we run down on the following morning, and anchored on the lee shore, within less than a cable's length of the surf, in six fathoms water.