The 12th and the 13th were spent in attempting the recovery of Captain Clerke’s anchor, which, after much trouble, was happily accomplished; and on the 14th, in the morning, we got under sail, and left Annamooka.

This island is somewhat higher than the other small isles that surround it; but, still, it cannot be admitted to the rank of those of a moderate height, such as Mangeea and Wateeoo.  The shore, at that part where our ships lay, is composed of a steep, rugged, coral rock, nine or ten feet high, except where there are two sandy beaches, which have a reef of the same sort of rock extending cross their entrance to the shore, and defending them from the sea.  The salt-water lake that is in the centre of the island, is about a mile and a half broad; and round it the land rises like a bank, with a gradual ascent.  But we could not trace its having any communication with the sea.  And yet, the land that runs across to it, from the largest sandy beach, being flat and low, and the soil sandy, it is most likely that it may have, formerly, communicated that way.  The soil on the rising parts of the island, and especially toward the sea, is either of a reddish clayey disposition, or a black, loose mould; but there is, no where, any stream of fresh water.

The island is very well cultivated, except in a few places; and there are some others, which, though they appear to lie waste, are only left to recover the strength exhausted by constant culture; for we frequently saw the natives at work upon these spots, to plant them again.  The plantations consist chiefly of yams and plantains.  Many of them are very extensive, and often inclosed with neat fences of reed, disposed obliquely across each other, about six feet high.  Within these we often saw other fences of less compass, surrounding the houses of the principal people.  The breadfruit, and cocoa-nut trees, are interspersed with little order, but chiefly near the habitations of the natives; and the other parts of the island, especially toward the sea, and about the sides of the lake, are covered with trees and bushes of a most luxuriant growth; the last place having a great many mangroves, and the first a vast number of the faitanoo trees already mentioned.  There seem to be no rocks or stones, of any kind, about the island, that are not coral, except in one place, to the right of the sandy beach, where there is a rock twenty or thirty feet high, of a calcareous stone, of a yellowish colour, and a very close texture.  But even about that place, which is the highest part of the land, are large pieces of the same coral rock that composes the shore.