13th May.
In the morning it blew so fresh from the eastward that Captain Dixon did
not like to move the vessel until 2 p.m., when we stood to the south for
about four miles, and came to anchor in four fathoms. Taking the
life-boat and cutter, both well-manned, we pulled south to the shore
about three miles, the water gradually shoaling until at half a mile from
the shore the boats grounded on a sandbank, from which we walked, through
mud, shells, and coral, to a belt of mangroves about fifty yards through,
behind which rose a sandbank about thirty feet high, covered with flowers
and coarse grass; from this to the foot of a range of rugged metamorphic
sandstone, a distance of half a mile, was an open, undulating, loamy
plain, covered with grass just arriving at maturity, a few small wattles,
hakea, and white-gum trees. As the sun had now set, we had only just time
to ascend a few hundred feet up the rocky ridge, from which elevation
could be discerned a sheet of water about a mile to the eastward, which
we attempted to reach, but it became so dark that it was found better to
return to the boats, which were now high and dry. By 8 p.m. the tide had
risen sufficiently to admit of Captain Dixon's return to the Dolphin,
while I remained with a portion of my own party to make further
examination in the morning; the leaky state of the cutter keeping one of
us bailing through the night.
14th May.
With Messrs. Turner, Brown, Harding, and Brockman, landed at 7 a.m., and
walked to the sheet of water observed last night, but found it only a
tidal inlet, terminating in a salt marsh. Continuing on our course for
five miles to the south-east, across a grassy plain, the soil being a
light brown loam, with occasional patches of quartz and gneiss pebbles,
and beds of limestone in irregular nodules, in an hour and a half arrived
at a deep stony watercourse, containing some small pools of brackish
water. This stream was followed up to the southward about a mile, but
found to be dry, and did not appear to come from a greater distance than
twenty miles. This river was named the Nickol. The country to the south
not being very promising, we turned to the westward, recrossing the plain
more to the south, passing several hollows, in which the rainwater had
very recently rested, leaving a rich alluvial deposit from which had
sprung up a splendid sward of grass, which was still quite green. Not
meeting with water in this direction, and the party not being yet in full
training, we were glad to return to the boat, which was reached by 2
p.m.; the tide being now in, enabled her to come in close to the beach,
the rise being found to be about sixteen feet. By 5.0 we had returned to
the ship, all tolerably well fatigued with our first day's march on
shore.