The north-east entrance of this passage or strait, lies in the latitude of 10° 39ʹ S., and in the longitude of 218° 36ʹ W. It is formed by the main, or the northern extremity of New Holland, on the S. E., and by a congeries of islands, which I called the PRINCE OF WALES’S ISLANDS, to the N. W., and it is probable that these islands extend quite to New Guinea. They differ very much both in height and circuit, and many of them seemed to be well clothed with herbage and wood: upon most, if not all of them, we saw smoke, and therefore there can be no doubt of their being inhabited: it is also probable, that among them there are at least as good passages as that we came through, perhaps better, though better would not need to be desired, if the access to it, from the eastward, were less dangerous: that a less dangerous access may be discovered, I think there is little reason to doubt, and to find it, little more seems to be necessary than to determine how far the principal, or outer reef, which bounds the shoals to the eastward, extends towards the north, which I would not have left to future navigators if I had been less harassed by danger and fatigue, and had had a ship in better condition for the purpose. To this channel, or passage, I have given the name of the ship, and called it ENDEAVOUR STRAITS. Its length from N. E. to S. W. is ten leagues, and it is about five leagues broad, except at the north-east entrance, where it is somewhat less than two miles, being contracted by the islands which lie there. That which I called Possession Island is of a moderate height and circuit, and this we left between us and the main, passing between it and two small round islands which lie about two miles to the N. W. of it. The two small islands, which I called Wallis’s Islands, lie in the middle of the south-west entrance, and these we left to the southward. Our depth of water in the strait was from four to nine fathom, with every where good anchorage, except upon the bank, which lies two leagues to the northward of Wallis’s Islands, where, at low water, there are but three fathom: for a more particular knowledge of this strait, and of the situations of the several islands and shoals on the eastern coast of New Wales, I refer to the chart, where they are delineated with all the accuracy that circumstances would admit; yet, with respect to the shoals, I cannot pretend that one half of them are laid down, nor can it be supposed possible that one half of them should be discovered in the course of a single navigation: many islands also must have escaped my pencil, especially between latitude 20° and 22°, where we saw islands out at sea as far as an island could be distinguished; it must not therefore be supposed, by future navigators, that where no shoal or island is laid down in my chart, no shoal or island will be found in these seas: it is enough that the situation of those that appear in the chart is faithfully ascertained, and, in