DEPARTURE FROM ROEBUCK BAY. 83 



STRAIT — roe's group — MIAGO AND HIS FRIENDS — A 

 BLACK DOG — A DAY OF REST — NATIVE RAFT — CAPTAIN 

 KING AND THE BATHURST — A GALE — POINT CUNNINGHAM 



SUCCESSFUL SEARCH FOR WATER NATIVE ESTIMATION 



OF THIS FLUID DISCOVERY OF A SKELETON — AND ITS 



REMOVAL THE GREY IBIS — OUR PARTING LEGACY. 



January 22, 1838. — Satisfied that no inland 

 communication could be expected from Roe- 

 buck Bay, we weighed in the early part of the 

 morning, and stood away to the northward. Roe- 

 buck Bay, so named to commemorate the name of 

 Dampier's ship, is about sixteen miles across : the 

 southern shores are low, and extensive sand banks 

 and mud flats are bared at low water. Near the 

 N.E. point of the bottom of this bay, is a curious 

 range of low cliffs, from twenty to thirty feet high, 

 and strongly tinged with red, in such a manner as 

 to suggest that they must be highly impregnated 

 with oxide of iron. In the neighbourhood of these 

 cliffs the country had a more fertile, or rather a less 

 desolate appearance, stretching out into extensive 

 plains, lightly timbered with various trees of the 

 genus Eucalypti, while, on the south shore of the 

 bay, the mangroves were numerous. 



Towards the afternoon we discovered a small inlet, 

 being then about 30 miles from our former 

 anchorage in Roebuck Bay. We steered directly 

 for it, and when within half a mile of its mouth, 

 we had, at high water, six fathoms. From the 

 masthead I could trace distinctly the course of 



G 2 



