At daylight (26th) we weighed with a light breeze from South-West, but soon afterwards falling calm, and the tide drifting us to the South-East the anchor was again dropped:  ten minutes afterwards a land breeze from East-South-East sprung up, to which we again weighed, but no sooner were we under sail than we were enveloped in a thick mist that blew off the land, where it had been collecting for the last two days.  At eleven o’clock the fog cleared away to seaward, but the land was screened from our view until noon, when a sea breeze from west gradually dispersed the fog, and the hillocky summit of Cape Latouche-Treville was seen, bearing South 17 degrees West.  At half-past twelve two rocky lumps on the land to the westward of Cape Villaret were seen, and very soon afterwards the hill on the cape made its appearance.  Between Capes Villaret and Latouche-Treville is a bay formed by very low sandy land, slightly clothed with a stunted vegetation.  The wind was now unfavourable for our approaching the land, and after standing off to sea and then towards the shore we anchored in thirteen fathoms coarse sand.

At this anchorage we found a still greater difference in the tides than was experienced the night preceding; the flood set South-East by East and East-South-East; and the ebb from North-North-East round to West-North-West; the rise was sixteen feet and a half, from which it would appear probable that there must be some reason for so great an indraught of water into the bight between Cape Villaret and Point Gantheaume, which I have named Roebuck Bay, after the ship that Captain Dampier commanded when he visited this part of the coast.

As the wind now blew constantly from the South-West, or from some southern direction, and caused our progress to be very slow and tedious; and as the shore for some distance to the southward of Cape Latouche-Treville had been partly seen by the French, I resolved upon leaving the coast.  Our water was also nearly expended, and our provisions, generally, were in a very bad state; besides which the want of a second anchor was so much felt that we dared not venture into any difficulty where the appearance of the place invited a particular investigation, on account of the exposed nature of the coast, and the strength of the tides, which were now near the springs:  upon every consideration, therefore, it was not deemed prudent to rely any longer upon the good fortune that had hitherto so often attended us in our difficulties.

August 27.

Accordingly after weighing, we steered off by the wind, and directed our course for Mauritius.

1821.  September 22.

On the 22nd September at daylight after a passage of twenty-five days we saw Roderigues, five or six leagues to the northward.  In the evening a fresh gale sprung up from the southward and we experienced very bad weather:  at noon of the 24th by our calculation we were seventy-three miles due East from the north end of Mauritius and, having the day before experienced a westerly current of one mile per hour, we brought to at sunset for the night, from the fear of getting too near the shore.