330 LOOK FOR CAPE WESSEL. 



fathoms. This was highly satisfactory, as it proved 

 there was water for the largest vessels.* In the after- 

 noon we anchored again under Booby Island. f 



On the evening of the next day, the lyth, we 

 weighed, and steered W. by S. across the Gulf; 

 and in the afternoon of the 18th passed eleven 

 miles from Cape Wessel, according to the position 

 assigned to it in the chart : but as the weather was 

 tolerably clear, and nothing was seen of it, there 

 appeared to be some truth in the report I had pre- 

 viously heard of its being to the southward of the 

 position given to it. 



The wind freshened by midnight, and, as usual, 

 became more southerly, that is to say, S. S. E., 



* Captain Blackwood's recent survey of this Strait confirms my 

 opinion of its being the best passage through this part of Torres 

 Strait. 



f The following is the extract from the game book referred to 

 in a former page: — "Booby Island (June and August), 145 

 quails, 18 pigeons, 12 rails, of two kinds, 3 doves; Van Die- 

 men's Inlet (July), 14 doves, 6 pigeons, 1 native companion ; 

 Bountiful Island (July), 8 quails, 11 doves, 1 pheasant, 3 plovers, 

 4 white cockatoos ; Sweers Island (July), 151 quails, 87 doves, 

 20 pigeons, 3 pheasants, 8 white and 2 black cockatoos, 5 spur- 

 wing plovers ; Disaster Inlet (July), 36 ducks, 9 white cockatoos, 

 2 native companions, 1 green ibis ; on the coast (July), 10 cur- 

 lews and plovers; Flinders River (July), 10 ducks, 5 rose- 

 coloured cockatoos, 4 pigeons, 3 spur wing plovers, 1 rail of a 

 new species, 1 white ibis, 1 spoonbill ; Albert River (August), 

 20 ducks, 4 large water rails, 2 pheasants ; betweenVan Diemen's 

 Inlet and Flinders' River (August), 12 cockatoos, 1 kangaroo 

 (Macropus unguifer) ; Wallis Isles (August), 6 quails, 6 doves, 

 1 pigeon." 



