Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 1Grey, George
History
Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 1
Grey, George
Natural history -- Australia -- Western Australia; Western Australia -- Discovery and exploration
We stood on until eleven A.M.; but in making land there always rests a
certain degree of anxiety upon the mind of the seaman and traveller, more
especially when that land is imperfectly known. As there appeared to be
every chance of our losing the sea-horizon, and consequently our noon
observation, if we stood on and the breeze continued, our course was
changed to the other tack until that hour; and then having correctly
ascertained our position, Red Island bearing south-east by east, distance
8 miles, we once more stood in for the land.
Red Island is small, rocky, and of no great elevation; its colour is a
very dark red; the sides are precipitous, and in its centre is a clump of
trees which cannot be seen until you have run by the island, as it falls
gradually from the south-west to the north-east, so that the north-east
side is the least elevated. We sounded when about seven miles to the
north-west of it, and found bottom at twenty-five fathoms, of green sandy
mud.
The sandbank laid down on the Admiralty charts to the north-east of Red
Island is small and barren; it is very low, and at some distance looks
like a white rock in the water; being apparently an island formed of the
same rock as the former, and topped with quartz or white sand. In
entering Hanover Bay, or Port George the Fourth, a good course is to run
nearly midway between this and Red Island. At sunset we anchored off
Entrance Island (Port George the Fourth) in twenty-five fathoms water.
ARRIVAL OFF THE COAST OF AUSTRALIA. ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY FROM
SHIP-BOARD.
At the first streak of dawn I leant over the vessel's side to gaze upon
those shores I had so longed to see. I had not anticipated that they
would present any appearance of inviting fertility; but I was not
altogether prepared to behold so arid and barren a surface as that which
now met my view. In front of me stood a line of lofty cliffs,
occasionally broken by sandy beaches; on the summits of these cliffs and
behind the beaches rose rocky sandstone hills, very thinly wooded. Whilst
I mused on this prospect, all hands were busied in getting the vessel
under weigh, which was soon accomplished; but there was little or no
wind, and the ship lay almost motionless upon the waters.
LAND AT HIGH BLUFF POINT. WALK TO HANOVER BAY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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