(Footnote.  Vide Appendix A Section X.)

April 6.

We left South-west Bay on the 4th, and the following morning anchored in a bay on the west side of North Island, and on the 6th we commenced cutting our wood from a group of casuarinas that grew close to the beach.

In the afternoon, when our party returned on board to dinner, some natives were perceived examining our wooding-place, but our late experience had taught us the precaution of bringing our tools away, to prevent any further occasion of quarrel.  They did not stop long but walked on, as if they had some other object; at about forty yards farther they halted again, and concealing themselves as they thought behind a bank, they watched us for half an hour; after which they walked away and disappeared among the trees.

April 7.

On our revisiting the shore, we traced their steps through the grass, and came up with a shallow well containing fresh water, which they had evidently taken the opportunity of our absence to drink at.  Upon further search we found their encampment; it consisted of three or four dwellings of a very different description from any that we had before, or have since seen:  they were of a conical shape, not more than three feet high, and not larger than would conveniently contain one person; they were built of sticks, stuck in the ground, and being united at the top, supported a roof of bark, which was again covered with sand, so that the hut looked more like a sand-hillock than the abode of a human creature:  the opening was at one side, and about eighteen inches in diameter; but even this could be reduced when they were inside, by heaping the sand up before it.  In one of the huts were found several strips of bamboo, and some fishing-nets, rudely made of the fibres of the bark of trees.

Mr. Cunningham took the advantage of a good spot of soil in the vicinity of our wooding-place to sow every sort of seed that we possessed, namely, peach, apricot, loquat (a Chinese fruit), lemon, seventeen sorts of culinary seeds, tobacco, roses, and a variety of other European plants; and in addition to these, the coconut was planted, which we had found upon the beach of South-West Bay, but it is very doubtful whether any have succeeded, on account of the custom that the natives have when the grass is dry, of setting fire to it, so that there is little doubt but that all the annual plants have been destroyed.

The bay was called Mullet Bay, in consequence of the immense shoals of that fish which were seen near the shores, and of which Boongaree speared several with his fiz-gig.  The trepang were found about the rocks on the beach in great numbers, as they were also on the South Island.

April 8.

On the 8th we left Mullet Bay, and made an unsuccessful attempt to beat round the north end of the island, and to return by steering through the strait that separates the Northern from the Southern Island:  we were, however, prevented by the freshness of the wind, and the strength of the current.