NARROW INLET. 197 



high rocky ridge. The width of Collier Bay, at 

 its entrance 20 miles, was here only six. The 

 western shore ran in a N.W. by W. direction, a 

 straight rocky coast, over which rose abruptly a 

 range of barren heights. The tide stream gradually 

 weakened as we approached the head of the bay, 

 where it scarcely exceeded half a knot, and the 

 soundings decreased to seven fathoms, with a kind 

 of muddy sand bottom ; but the clearness of the 

 water, and the equal duration of the flood and ebb 

 streams, afforded the most conclusive evidence of 

 the small opening we now discovered in the S.E. 

 corner of the bay being nothing more than an 

 inlet. It bore from this islet E.S.E. four miles, yet 

 as a drowning man catches at a straw, so did we 

 at this inlet, and were soon in the entrance, which 

 we found to be half a mile wide, with a very 

 strong tide rushing out. After some difficulty we 

 landed on a high rocky island in the mouth of it, 

 the summit of which afforded us a good view of the 

 inlet, which within the entrance widened out and 

 was about two miles deep. A point prevented our 

 seeing the eastern extreme, which Mr. Helpman 

 was sent to examine ; he found it extended two 

 miles in an E.N.E. direction, and like the other 

 parts of it, to be lined with a scanty growth of 

 mangroves, and flanked by high rocky land. The 

 shape of this inlet resembles that of a bottle with a 

 broad base, and being subject to a tidal change of 

 level of 36 feet, it is easy to imagine with what 



