At daylight, we left for Sweers Island; but owing to light winds, chiefly easterly, did not reach Investigator Road, between Sweers and Bentinck Islands, before the afternoon of the 8th.  The soundings on the way were generally 9 fathoms, fine sandy mud.  A small islet, lying off the South-East side of Bentinck Island, and forming the immediate eastern side of the Road, I named after the first lieutenant of the Investigator, now Captain Fowler.

Under Mount Inspection, a hill 105 feet high, and the most remarkable feature hereabouts, on the South-East extreme of Sweers Island, a party of twelve natives was observed as we passed.  They gazed silently at us, making no demonstration of joy, fear, anger, or surprise.  It is possible they may have been stupefied by the appearance of that wonderful creation of man’s ingenuity—­a ship; in their eyes it must have seemed a being endowed with life walking the waters, for purposes to them incomprehensible, on a mission to the discovery of which they could not even apply the limited faculties they possessed.  Fortunately or unfortunately for them—­according as we determine on the value of civilization to the aboriginal races of the South—­they did not possess the fatal, or salutary, curiosity that prompts most men to attempt fathoming the depth of whatever is mysterious.  Restrained by their fears, or by their ignorant, or philosophical indifference, they did not again show themselves:  and though when we landed we once or twice thought we heard sounds of life in our vicinity, the natives of the island never again came under our observation.  It is remarkable that the same circumstance happened to Flinders.  He also perceived human beings at a distance; but when he endeavoured to communicate with them, they retired, as he mentions, to some of the caverns that exist on the island, and were seen no more.

SWEERS ISLAND.

Sweers Island appeared to be very woody, and bounded by low dark cliffs on the north-east side.  We found a long extent of foul ground, with a dry reef near its outer end, extending off two miles in a South 33 degrees East direction from the South-East extreme.  Our anchorage was in 5 1/2 fathoms, nearly abreast of a remarkable and solitary sandy point on the above-mentioned island.  As we beat up, the navigable width between this and Fowler Island was found to be one mile, and the depth 4 and 5 fathoms.

INVESTIGATOR’S WELL.

A party was immediately despatched in search of the Investigator’s well.  Previous to landing, the whole island appeared to be perfectly alive with a dense cloud of small flying animals, which, on our reaching the shore, proved to be locusts in countless numbers, forming a complete curtain over the island.  They rose from the ground in such prodigious flights at each footstep that we were absolutely prevented from shooting any of the quails with which the island abounds.  This annoyance, however, was only experienced for the first day or two, as the locusts winged their flight to Bentinck Island, leaving the trees only laden with them; out of these they started, when disturbed, with a rushing noise like surf on a pebbly beach.