At half-past five o’clock they re-embarked on their return and, although the tide was in their favour, were six hours before they reached the vessel; from which Mr. Roe calculated the distance to be nearly twenty miles, and by the survey subsequently made it was found to be seventeen.

February 11.

We did not leave this anchorage until the 11th and then had some difficulty in doing it, on account of the shoalness of the water upon the sandbank that fronts the bay; indeed we were obliged to anchor until the tide rose high enough to permit our crossing it.  At two o’clock we again got underweigh and crossed the bank, when the wind falling calm we anchored with Point Cunningham bearing South 17 degrees East three and a half miles.

February 12.

The following morning I sent Mr. Roe to the point to take some bearings; the boat left the brig at half-past three o’clock but did not succeed in reaching the land before the sun rose; at which time the horizon, from being clearer, would have presented a more distinct view of distant objects.  The group of islands to the eastward was observed to extend no farther to the southward than the bearing of North 88 degrees East, and beyond this was an open, boundless sea.  The station whence this bearing was taken was on the north-west trend of the point.

On their first landing Mr. Roe and Mr. Baskerville, with one of the boat’s crew, ascended the summit and, whilst employed in looking round, heard the voices of natives among the trees about thirty yards off; but as they could not see them they very properly descended, and carried on their operations in the vicinity of the boat; they were onshore for two or three hours afterwards, but the natives did not make their appearance.  The foot-marks of men and boys were evident on the sand below the high-water mark, and the remains of fireplaces, and where the natives had been manufacturing spears, were of recent date.  The gentlemen brought off a few shells and some insects, among which was a beautiful sphynx; besides which one of the boat’s crew caught a species of vampyrus, apparently similar to the flying fox of Port Jackson.  Of shells there was not a great variety; a chama (Tridacna gigas, Lam.) a pinna, and the trochus (caerulescens) of Dirk Hartog’s Island; but at one of the fireplaces they found a very large voluta that seemed to have served the purpose of a water-vessel; it was fifteen inches long and ten inches in diameter.

The shores appear to abound with shellfish, although Dampier thought that shells hereabouts were scarce.  We could easily have completed our water at this point, but from the place appearing to be populous and, as the vessel could not be anchored sufficiently near the shore to have protected the boat’s crews, it was feared that our work might be impeded by the natives.