It was late in the evening when we got underway, at the Mulgraves, for the last time. We had surveyed all that part of the islands intervening between our first anchorage and the Globe's landing, and now steered to the eastward by the bearings we had previously taken. Squalls of wind and heavy rain coming on, we soon lost sight of the land. The loud roaring of the surf, off the extreme north-eastern point, as well as the heavy swell that set in immediately afterwards, apprised us that we had cleared the group. The land was in sight from the mast-head, in the morning, when we ran down for the eastern end of the island, where we had first anchored, and at a convenient distance run along upon the weather side, taking hearings at the end of every base of three or four miles. Near the centre of the windward part of the group we passed a wide opening into the inland sea, not far from which was a reef of considerable extent, where a very high surf was breaking. Within a short distance of the reef, we saw the bottom plainly in ten fathoms water. There was no place on the weather side of the islands, where it was possible to land with any degree of safety. After passing the extreme northern point we steered off, with the trending of the land W. by S.; and, at sun-down, were up with the island, from whence I had taken Lay, having sailed nearly round the group. Here we hove to for the night. The group of Mulgrave Islands, as they are called, form a circular chain of narrow strips of land, which are no where more than half a mile wide, inclosing within the circle an inland sea, one hundred and forty miles in circumference, filled with shoals and reefs of coral. It is every where bounded on the sea-side, by a bank of coral, that protects it from the violence of the ocean. This bank generally extends but a short distance from the shore, when it goes off into unfathomable water. At the chief's islet, where we buried the surgeon, it was wider than at any other place about the group, being upwards of a cable's length, which, for a low coral island, may be considered good anchorage. The whole circle is broken alternately into clumps, a few feet above the water, of level and low coral reefs, some of which are above high-water mark, and some sufficiently low to afford a passage for boats. The clumps vary in length, but none of them are more than two miles long, without an interruption of a dry or drowned reef. They are covered with a thick growth of bushes, and trees of small size, except where the cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees rear their tall heads, and wide-spreading branches. Wherever these grow, the underwood disappears, and the place has the appearance of an old forest, cleared for a pleasure ground, where a few trees have been left standing, for the advantage of their shade.