Leave port Essington.

Early on the morning of the 4th of September, 1839, the Beagle was once more slipping out of Port Essington before a light land wind.  We had taken a hearty farewell of our friends at Victoria, in whose prosperity we felt all the interest that is due to those who pioneer the way for others in the formation of a new settlement.  No doubt the hope that our discoveries might open a new field for British enterprise, and contribute to extend still more widely the blessings of civilization, increased the sympathy we felt for the young colony at Victoria.  There is always a feeling of pride and pleasure engendered by the thought that we are in any way instrumental to the extension of man’s influence over the world which has been given him to subdue.  In the present instance, the success of our last cruise and the state of preparation in which we were now in for a longer one, caused us to take our departure from Port Essington in far higher spirits than on the former occasion.

Pass through Clarence strait.

We again shaped our course for Clarence Strait, the western entrance of which was still unexamined.  The wind, however, being light, we passed the night in Popham Bay; and on leaving next morning, had only six fathoms in some tide ripplings nearly two miles off its south point, Cape Don.  We passed along the south side of Melville Island, where a large fire was still burning.  Early in the evening we anchored in seven fathoms, to wait for a boat that had been sent to examine a shoal bay on the North-West side of Cape Keith.  Green Ant Cliffs bore South-West two miles.

September 7.

Weighing at daylight we hauled up south, into the middle of the channel, crossing a ridge of 5 1/2 fathoms; Ant Cliffs bearing West-South-West five miles, and three or four from the shore.  This ridge appears to be thrown up at the extremity of the flats fronting the shore.  On deepening the water to 10 and 12 fathoms, the course was changed to West 1/2 South, passing midway between North Vernon Isle and Cape Gambier, where the width of the channel is seven miles, though the whole of it is not available for the purposes of navigation, a long detached reef lying three miles from the Cape, and a small one two miles from the North Vernon Isle.* The tide hurried the Beagle past between these reefs with some rapidity, the soundings at the time being 19 fathoms.

(Footnote.  These isles, three in number, lying quite in the centre of the western entrance of the Strait, are fringed with extensive coral reefs.  There are, however, deep passages between them.)

Having cleared Clarence Strait, and found it to be perfectly navigable with common precaution (which in a slight degree enhanced the value of the discovery of the Adelaide) our course was directed for a bay to the southward, which Captain King had not examined.  A very refreshing cool north-westerly seabreeze* had just succeeded a short calm.  Passing four miles from the western extremity of the Vernon Isles, we had irregular soundings of ten and seven fathoms.  The ripplings and discoloured water are a warning that they should be approached with caution on this side.