But the sky assuming a threatening aspect, and the wind increasing from the westward, we sought shelter under the South-East end of Robbin Island.  And it was well we did so; for during the following two days, it blew the heaviest gale we had yet met with in the Strait.  A succession of violent gusts from the west, with loud thunder, vivid lightning, and much rain, constantly reminded us of the wisdom of our cautious proceeding.  At Port Phillip this same storm was felt very severely.  Such was its strength and violence, that many houses were unroofed, and other damage done to a large amount.  It passed over both Melbourne and Geelong, darkening the air with the clouds of dust it bore along with it, and filling the minds of the inhabitants with the greatest terror and apprehension.  They called it a tornado; and it appeared to have quite the rotatory character of a hurricane.

February 11.

We left this anchorage, and passed three miles from the North-East side of Three Hummock Island where we found only six fathoms, apparently on a bank thrown up by the tide sweeping round its sides.  From thence we steered across the Strait to Sea Elephant Rock on the eastern shore of King Island.  We saw nothing of the islands laid down by the French, thirteen leagues east of it, and it was my firm belief that they had no existence.  Subsequent observation has confirmed this belief.  We however found the shoal water supposed to exist thereabouts.

The northern termination of the highland over the south-eastern part of the island which marks Sea Elephant Bay was very apparent as we approached.  In the evening we anchored in seven fathoms on the north side of Sea Elephant Rock, which we visited the following morning.  It is nearly a mile in circumference, and 120 feet high, clothed with a coarse wiry grass.  A small vessel if properly moored might find shelter under it from easterly gales.  We were surprised to find the time of high-water here nearly two hours earlier than at Three Hummock Island; the flood-stream came from the southward.

WILD DOGS.

Of the number of wild dogs that we had heard of as being on this island, we saw only two.  From the bones we found of others it is more than probable that they live upon each other at the seasons of the year when the mutton birds having departed; they would otherwise have to depend solely for subsistence on the few shellfish adhering to the rocks.  This reminded me of what I once witnessed on an island off the eastern coast of Patagonia.  Several herds of deer had once existed upon it; but some persons having turned a number of dogs loose, the original inhabitants were soon destroyed, and the newcomers afterwards devoured each other, so that when I saw them, but a small remnant remained.  The dogs on Sea Elephant Rock, which were left by sealers, had grown so wild that they would not allow us to approach them.  I saw here some small penguins, a bird we rarely met with in the Strait.