Point Swan. 
Tide-races. 
Search for water. 
Encountered by Natives. 
Return to the Ship. 
The attempt renewed. 
Conduct of the Natives. 
Effect of a Congreve Rocket after dark. 
A successful haul. 
More Natives. 
Miago’s Heroism. 
The plague of Flies. 
Dampier’s description of it. 
Native Habitations. 
Underweigh. 
Wind and weather. 
Tidal Phenomenon. 
Natural History. 
Singular Kangaroo. 
Bustard. 
Cinnamon Kangaroo. 
Quails. 
Goanas and Lizards. 
Ant Hills. 
Fishing over the side. 
A day in the Bush. 
A flood of fire. 
Soil and Productions. 
White Ibis. 
Curious Tree. 
Rain water. 
Geology of the Cliffs. 
Weigh, and graze a Rock, or Touch and go. 
The Twins. 
Sunday Strait. 
Roe’s Group. 
Miago and his friends. 
A black dog. 
A day of rest. 
Native raft. 
Captain King and the Bathurst. 
A gale. 
Point Cunningham. 
Successful search for water. 
Native estimation of this fluid. 
Discovery of a Skeleton. 
And its removal. 
The grey Ibis. 
Our parting legacy.

DEPARTURE FROM ROEBUCK BAY.

January 22, 1838.

Satisfied that no inland communication could be expected from Roebuck Bay, we weighed in the early part of the morning, and stood away to the northward.

APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY.

Roebuck Bay, so named to commemorate the name of Dampier’s ship, is about sixteen miles across:  the southern shores are low, and extensive sandbanks and mud flats are bared at low-water.  Near the North-East point of the bottom of this bay, is a curious range of low cliffs, from twenty to thirty feet high, and strongly tinged with red, in such a manner as to suggest that they must be highly impregnated with oxide of iron.  In the neighbourhood of these cliffs the country had a more fertile, or rather a less desolate appearance, stretching out into extensive plains, lightly timbered with various trees of the genus Eucalypti, while, on the south shore of the bay, the mangroves were numerous.

Towards the afternoon we discovered a small inlet, being then about 30 miles from our former anchorage in Roebuck Bay.  We steered directly for it, and when within half a mile of its mouth, we had, at high-water, six fathoms.  From the masthead I could trace distinctly the course of this inlet, which at this state of the tide appeared to be of great extent; but the bar which locked its mouth, and over which the sea was breaking very heavily, rendered it impossible to take a boat across without evident risk, by which no real good would be obtained, as the rise and fall of the tide, eighteen feet, on this low coast, was more than sufficient to account for the imposing, though deceptive appearance of this opening.  From the main-top-gallant yard I was enabled to take an almost bird’s-eye view of the level country stretched apparently at my feet.  The shore, like the south side of Roebuck Bay, was fringed with mangroves, while to the North-North-East lay an extensive plain, over which the water seemed, at certain seasons of the year, to flow.  The country around, for miles, wore the appearance of an interminable and boundless plain, with an almost imperceptible landward elevation, and thickly wooded with stunted trees.