February 21, 1838.

We remained at this sheltered anchorage until the 21st, by which time the coast, so far as Point Cunningham, had been carefully examined.  We found it everywhere indented with deep bays, in each of which good anchorage was to be found.  The water’s edge was in almost every place fringed with the closely twining mangrove trees, behind which the country gradually rose to an average level of about 200 feet, being thickly covered with the various sorts of Eucalypti, for which all the explored portions of this continent are more or less remarkable.

In the afternoon of the 21st, we moved into a bay North-West of Point Cunningham, and anchored in 8 fathoms (low-water) about a mile North-West from that point; having passed over a bank of 5 or 6 fathoms, with 12 on its outer, and 10 on its inner side, and lying 2 1/4 miles north from Point Cunningham.

MOSQUITOES.

I spent the early part of this night on shore, a circumstance of which the tormenting mosquitoes took every possible advantage; finally driving me from their territory with every indignity, and in a state of mind anything but placid.  The poet doubtless spoke from experience when he asserted: 

—­there was never yet philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently.

And even could such a prodigy of patient endurance be found, I am sure it would fail him when exposed to the ceaseless persecution of these inexorable assailants.

February 22.

The greater part of to-day was spent in making a more minute examination of the bay, the shoal discovered yesterday rendering a more careful search necessary.  From the summit of Point Cunningham, I had a fine view of the opposite shore of the sound; very broken and rugged it appeared to be.  To the South-East and south I could see no land; a circumstance which raised my hopes of finding in that direction the long and anxiously expected river, which the geological formation of the country, and all the recorded experience of discovery, alike warranted us in anticipating.  The point upon which I stood was a steep and cliffy rock facing the sea, connected with the mainland by a low and narrow neck of land, but almost insulated at high-water during the spring tides.  A singular cliff, projecting on its South-East side, is called by Captain King, Carlisle Head; but we searched in vain for the fresh water, which that distinguished navigator speaks of, as having been found there by him in 1819.

SINGULAR VITREOUS FORMATION.

We remarked here, certain vitreous formations, in all, except form, identical with those already described as having been seen at Point Swan.  These were small balls lying loose on the sandy beach, at the bottom of the cliff; they were highly glazed upon the surface, hollow inside, and varying in size from a musket, to a tennis ball.*

(Footnote.  Vide Mr. Darwin on “superficial ferrugineous beds” Geology of Volcanic Islands page 143.)