To these particulars, which throw abundant light on this part of our author’s journal, I shall only add, that the distance of our harbour from that where Boisguehenneu landed in 1772, is forty leagues.  For this we have the authority of Kerguelen, in the following passage:—­“Monsieur de Boisguehenneu descendit le 13 de Fevrier 1772, dans un baie, qu’il nomme Baie du Lion Marin, & prit possession de cette terre au nom de Roi; il n’y vit aucune trace d’habitants.  Monsieur de Rochegude, en 1774, a descendu dans un autre baie, que nous avons nomme Baie de l’Oiseau, & cette seconde rade est a quarantes lieues de la premiere.  Il en a egalement pris possession, & il n’y trouva egalement aucune trace d’habitants.” Kerguelen, p. 92.—­D.]

As a memorial of our having been in this harbour, I wrote on the other side of the parchment,

Naves Resolution
et Discovery
de Rege Magnae Britanniae,
Decembris 1776.

I then put it again into a bottle, together with a silver two-penny piece of 1772; and having covered the mouth of the bottle with a leaden cap, I placed it the next morning in a pile of stones erected for the purpose, upon a little eminence on the north shore of the harbour, and near to the place where it was first found, in which position it cannot escape the notice of any European, whom chance or design may bring into this port.  Here I displayed the British flag, and named the place Christmas Harbour, from our having arrived in it on that festival.

It is the first or northernmost inlet that we meet with on the S.E. side of the Cape St Louis,[111] which forms the N. side of the harbour, and is also the northern point of this land.  The situation alone is sufficient to distinguish it from any of the other inlets; and, to make it more remarkable, its S. point terminates in a high rock, which is perforated quite through, so as to appear like the arch of a bridge.  We saw none like this upon the whole coast.[112] The harbour has another distinguishing mark within, from a single stone or rock, of a vast size, which lies on the top of a hill on the S. side, near its bottom; and opposite this, on the N. side, there is another hill, much like it, but smaller.  There is a small beach at its bottom, where we commonly landed; and, behind it, some gently rising ground, on the top of which is a large pool of fresh-water.  The land on both sides of the inlet is high, and it runs in W., and W.N.W., about two miles.  Its breadth is one mile and a quarter, for more than half its length, above which it is only half a mile.  The depth of water, which is forty-five fathoms at the entrance, varies, as we proceed farther in, from thirty to five and four fathoms.  The shores are steep; and the bottom is every where a fine dark sand, except in some places close to the shore, where there are beds of sea-weed, which always grows on rocky ground.  The head of the harbour lies open only to two points of the compass; and even these are covered by islands in the offing, so that no sea can fall in to hurt a ship.  The appearances on shore confirmed this; for we found grass growing close to high-water mark, which is a sure sign of a pacific harbour.[113] It is high-water here, at the full and change days, about ten o’clock; and the tide rises and falls about four feet.