This harbour, which I shall distinguish by the name of the Devil’s Bason, is divided, as it were, into two, an inner. and an outer one; and the communication between them is by a narrow channel five fathoms deep.  In the outer bason I found thirteen and seventeen fathoms water, and in the inner seventeen and twenty-three.  This last is as secure a place as can be, but nothing can be more gloomy.  The vast height of the savage rocks which encompass it, deprived great part of it, even on this day, of the meridian sun.  The outer harbour is not quite free from this inconvenience, but far more so than the other; it is also rather more commodious, and equally safe.  It lies in the direction of north, a mile and a half distant from the east end of Burnt Island.  I likewise found a good anchoring-place a little to the west of this harbour, before a stream of water, that comes out of a lake or large reservoir, which is continually supplied by a cascade falling into it.

Leaving this place, we proceeded along the shore to the westward, and found other harbours which I had not time to look into.  In all of them is fresh water, and wood for fuel; but, except these little tufts of bushes, the whole country is a barren rock, doomed by nature to everlasting sterility.  The low islands, and even some of the higher, which lie scattered up and down the sound, are indeed mostly covered with shrubs and herbage, the soil a black rotten turf, evidently composed, by length of time, of decayed vegetables.

I had an opportunity to verify what we had observed at sea, that the sea-coast is composed of a number of large and small islands, and that the numerous inlets are formed by the junction of several channels; at least so it is here.  On one of these low islands we found several huts, which had lately been inhabited; and near them was a good deal of celery, with which we loaded our boat, and returned on board at seven o’clock in the evening.  In this expedition we met with little game; one duck, three or four shags, and about that number of rails or sea-pies, being all we got.  The other boat returned on board some hours before, having found two harbours on the west side of the other channel; the one large, and the other small, but both of them safe and commodious; though, by the sketch Mr Pickersgill had taken of them, the access to both appeared rather intricate.[2]

I was now told of a melancholy accident which had befallen one of our marines.  He had not been seen since eleven or twelve o’clock the preceding night.  It was supposed that he had fallen overboard, out of the head, where he had been last seen, and was drowned.