a distance our appearance must have been sufficiently amusing.  One moment soberly intent upon our duties, and the next jumping like madmen, and hastily stripping off our garments.  The name of Ant Cliffs records our visit to the south shores of Melville Island.  The tide on this side of the strait ran nearly two knots an hour, following the direction of the shore; the time of high-water being a quarter of an hour earlier than in Adam Bay.

August 15.

Recrossed Clarence Strait to obtain observations for rating the chronometers, and examine the extensive shoal off Cape Hotham.  On anchoring near its edge, a patch with only five feet was discovered close to the ship; the muddy and restless state of the water, caused by a meeting of the tides, setting out of Van Diemen’s Gulf and Adam Bay, renders it necessary to approach Cape Hotham from the northward, with caution.  However, the unusually great depth, for this strait, of twenty fathoms, will give warning of a ship’s proximity to this danger, the limits of which have been given on the occasion of our first visit to Cape Hotham.

WANT OF WATER.

Our stock of water being now much reduced, it was necessary before proceeding further, that we should procure a supply.  As it was a matter of no certainty that we should find sufficient on the coast to the westward, it was at first suggested that we should take the ship up the Adelaide and fill the tanks from alongside.  This would have been a grand feat, having never before been accomplished in any river in Australia.  Indeed it was the only one on the whole continent, which could carry up a vessel of the Beagle’s draught into fresh water.  An idea, the realization of which would so completely crown our exploration with success, naturally gave rise to a great degree of enthusiasm and excitement.  Soon, however, more sober thoughts prevailed, when we reflected on the time this proceeding would consume, on account of the tortuous* course of the river:  time which we could, with our scanty stock of provisions, ill spare.  At Port Essington it was possible we should be able to get a supply of both, as a ship might have arrived during our absence.  Moreover it was highly important, that we should make known without delay, the discovery of a river of such magnitude as the Adelaide, distant only seventy miles from the settlement.

(Footnote.  Nothing shows the flat nature of a country more than the tortuous course of a stream passing through it.  It is a want of change in the level, which causes a river to twist and wind about in search, as it were, of the weakest spot for its exit.)

RETURN TOWARDS PORT ESSINGTON.

It was then finally resolved that we should return to Port Essington, and in the forenoon of the 17th, the Beagle was drifting along the western shore of Dundas Strait, out of Van Diemen’s Gulf.  The day happening, very remarkably for the locality at this season, to be calm throughout, the anchor was dropped at sunset in 22 fathoms; Cape Fleming the North-East point of Melville Island, bearing North-West 1/2 West eight miles.  A deep sandy bay bore South-West five miles, which promised good anchorage.  The appearance of the north-east part of Melville Island was still very triste, presenting to the eye nothing save patches of mangroves, behind which rose a range of ill-defined hills, 300 feet in elevation.