As the brig approached the land breakers were seen to extend the whole length of the shore, which is fronted by a sandy beach:  the land is of moderate height but the summit is rather more rugged than that to the southward where the outline is perfectly level.  At half-past three o’clock Vlaming Head bore south six miles and three quarters off:  at four o’clock the latitude, by the moon’s meridional altitude, was found to be 21 degrees 38 minutes 27 seconds, at which time sights were taken for the chronometer, which made the longitude of the head 114 degrees 2 minutes 16 seconds:  the situation assigned to it on our first voyage was 114 degrees 1 minute 47 seconds; the mean of the two, 114 degrees 2 minutes 2 seconds, may therefore be considered its true situation.

From the above observation for the latitude of the North-West Cape agreeing nearly with those of our former voyage, I was induced to think that there might be some land more to the northward that the French saw and took for the cape; for they have placed it in 21 degrees 37 minutes 7 seconds South, which is nearly 10 minutes too northerly.  Captain Horsburgh, in the supplement to his Directory, notices some islands seen by the San Antonio in 1818, called Piddington’s Islands, that are said to lie in the latitude of 21 degrees 36 minutes, but after steering seventeen miles to the North-East from the above situation, without seeing anything like land, there remained no doubt in my mind that the French must have been deceived and that Piddington’s Islands are some of the low, sandy islets to the eastward of Muiron Island.

January 30.

Having steered through the night on a north-east course, Barrow’s Island came in sight the next morning, when it was about five leagues off; at eight o’clock it bore between South 27 East and North 87 degrees East.  From noon to three p.m. we had calm, dull, and cloudy weather; and although the thermometer did not range higher than 87 degrees, the heat was extremely oppressive, and occasioned the death of three of our turtles.  At three o’clock a breeze springing up from the westward enabled us to steer to the northward round the Montebello Islands, in doing which we saw nothing of Hermite Island, which the French have laid down as the westernmost island of that group.  There is certainly no land to the westward of Trimouille Island; and the error can only be accounted for by Captain Baudin’s having seen the latter at two different periods; indeed this conjecture is in some measure proved, since there is a considerable reef running off the north-west end of that island, which in the French chart is attached to Hermite Island; this reef might not have been seen by him at his first visit, and when he made the land again and observed the reef he must have concluded it to have been a second island.