And on the 4th in latitude 28 degrees the trade-wind ceased: the winds were however variable between South and South-East until we reached the latitude of 31 1/2 degrees and longitude 95 degrees 20 minutes; when the wind veered by North-East to North-West and West-North-West and we made rapid progress to the south-east. Between the parallels of 40 and 42 degrees, we had the wind always to the westward of North by East and South by West, with the current uniformly setting to the northward, sometimes at the rate of three-quarters of a mile per hour; to the south-west of Cape Leeuwin it affected us more than one knot: scarcely any easterly current was observed. November 27. On the 27th at eight p.m. we sounded in forty-eight fathoms. November 28. And at one o'clock the following morning saw the Black Pyramid and soon after entered Bass Strait by the passage on the south side of King's Island. After running into the latitude of Sea Elephant Bay on the east side of King's Island, in an unsuccessful search after some rocks laid down in the French charts but not noticed in those of Captain Flinders, we bore up; and at eleven p.m. passed Sir Roger Curtis Island. November 29. And the next day cleared the strait. 1820. December 2. On the 2nd we were off Mount Dromedary; and the wind blew strong from the East, the weather assuming a threatening appearance. December 3. The next day we passed the heads of Jervis Bay at the distance of three or four leagues, and the course was altered to North and North by West parallel to the coast. At noon an indifferent observation for the latitude and a sight of the land, which for a few minutes was visible through the squalls, showed that our situation was very much nearer to the shore than we had expected, a circumstance that was attributed to a current setting into the bight to the northward of Jervis Bay. The wind from the eastward was light and baffling and this, added to the critical situation we were in, made me very anxious to obtain an offing before night for there was every appearance of a gale from the eastward. After two or three squalls a breeze sprung up from the East-South-East with heavy rain, and a North-North-East course was steered, which should have taken us wide of the coast: having run thirty-seven miles on that course we steered North by East four miles and then North 1/2 West that we might not be more than twenty miles from the shore in the morning and sufficiently near to see the lighthouse on the south head of Port Jackson; but, from an unusual westerly current, we found ourselves, very nearly to our destruction, considerably out of our reckoning. December 4.