RETURN TOWARDS PORT ESSINGTON. 431 



over it was highly important, that we should make 

 known without delay, the discovery of a river of 

 such magnitude as the Adelaide, distant only 

 seventy miles from the settlement. 



It was then finally resolved that we should return 

 to Port Essington, and in the forenoon of the lyth, 

 the Beagle was drifting* along the western shore 

 of Dundas Strait, out of Van Diemen's Gulf. The 

 day happening, very remarkably for the locality at 

 this season, to be calm throughout, the anchor was 

 dropped at sunset in 22 fathoms ; Cape Fleming 

 the N. E. point of Melville Island, bearing N. W. 

 J W. eight miles. A deep sandy bay bore S. W. 

 five miles, which promised good anchorage. The 

 appearance of the north-east part of Melville Island 

 was still very triste, presenting to the eye nothing 

 save patches of mangroves, behind which rose a 

 range of ill defined hills, 300 feet in elevation. 



We anchored to prevent being taken back through 

 Dundas Strait by the return tide, which from 5, 

 P.M., to midnight, set S. E. by S. from two to three 

 knots an hour. High water at Popham Bay on the 

 east side of the Strait being at a quarter past eleven, 

 we may conclude the N. W. stream began at this an- 

 chorage three quarters of an hour after high water. 

 Weighing as soon as the tide made out of the strait, 

 although there was still no wind, we were rather 



* The tide out of Van Diemen's Gulf takes a N. W. direction, 

 until coming in contact with Cape Keith, it branches off along 

 the east and south side of Melville Island. 



