The next morning we were steering towards Mount Upstart, and at noon passed within two miles of its extremity. Behind the Mount, which rises with remarkable abruptness from the low land in its rear, are two prominent hills; the highest of which, Mount Abbott, has a peaked summit; the irregular and mountainous appearance of the range upon which this Mount stands, and a very evident break in the hills on its western side, would lead one to suspect the existence of a river, of which the bay on the western side of the Mount may be the mouth. There is also a bay on the eastern side of Mount Upstart, which also has a river-like appearance. In fact, it is not at all certain whether Mount Upstart may not be an island, and the bay behind it the mouth of a considerable stream. The variation observed by Captain Cook off Mount Upstart was 9 degrees East; but by an Azimuth observed by me close to the Cape, it was found not more than 6 degrees 16 minutes East. The result of Captain Cook's observation must therefore be attributed to some other cause than, as he supposed, to a magnetical power in the hills of this promontory. June 13. At daylight of the 13th we passed within four miles of the extremity of Cape Bowling-green, which, although it is very low and sandy, is not destitute of wood or verdure; between Cape Bowling-green and the back mountainous ranges, a distance of nearly thirty miles, the country appears to rise gradually, and gave us reason to regret that the nature of my instructions did not warrant our making a more particular examination of this part of the coast, for it appears to offer a much greater degree of interest and importance than any part of the southward without the tropic. Indeed, this bay appeared to be equally promising in its appearance with those near Mount Upstart; and the peculiar feature of Cape Bowling-green, jutting out into the sea between them, considerably increases the probability of there being more than one or two rivers of importance hereabouts. The barren range, which has almost uninterruptedly continued from the back of Cape Palmerston, a distance of 150 miles, here ceases or retires, and leaves a gap of ten or twelve miles wide of low land; to the North-West of which, Mount Eliot, a hill of considerable height, rises rather abruptly; and, as the shores of the bay were not distinctly traced, there is fair reason for presuming that there is a river at its bottom. June 14. The next morning we steered round Cape Cleveland and passed close to some straggling rocks on a reef that extends for four miles to the eastward of it.