April 27.

We experienced the long rolling swell of the Southern Ocean, which, as well as our reckoning, informed us we were rounding North-West Cape; at the same time we began to feel a steady breeze from the South-East and the northerly current which there prevails.  As we were now approaching the usual track of vessels bound from Australia to India, we were not unprepared for the somewhat unusual sight of a strange sail:  an object always of some little interest, but which becomes quite an event to those whose duty leads them into the less frequented portions of the deep.

THE TRYAL ROCKS.

The increasing trade now carried on between Sydney and the gorgeous East, has converted the dividing sea into a beaten track; and as no further evidence has been brought forward to confirm the reported existence of the Tryal Rocks, asserted to lie directly in the course steered by vessels making this passage, I cannot but adhere to Captain King’s opinion, that Tremouille Island and its outlying reefs, situated in the same latitude as that in which the Tryal Rocks are supposed to lie, have originated the mistake;* one, be it observed, of longitude, in which particular the accounts of earlier navigators must always be received with caution.

(Footnote.  Subsequent explorations have proved this to be the case.)

ANECDOTES OF MIAGO.

While our return to Swan River was thus baffled and delayed by the long and almost unbroken continuance of foul winds, it afforded some diversion to watch the countenance and conduct of Miago, who was as anxious as anyone on board for the sight of his native land.  He would stand gazing steadily and in silence over the sea, and then sometimes, perceiving that I watched him, say to me, “Miago sing, by and by northern men wind jump up:”  then would he station himself for hours at the lee-gangway, and chant to some imaginary deity an incantation or prayer to change the opposing wind.  I could never rightly learn to whom this rude melody was addressed; for if anyone approached him near enough to overhear the words, he became at once silent; but there was a mournful and pathetic air running through the strain, that rendered it by no means unpleasing; though doubtless it owed much of its effect to the concomitant circumstances.  The rude savage—­separated from all his former companions, made at once an intimate and familiar witness of some of the wonders of civilization, carried by his new comrades to their very country, and brought face to face with his traditionary foes, the dreaded northern men, and now returning to recount to his yet ruder brethren the wonders he had witnessed—­could not fail to interest the least imaginative.