4 
A VOYAGE TO 
[ East Coast. 
1802. Cook ; its centre lies in 30° 55' south, and 153° 4' east. The three 
Saturday 24 . hummocks upon it stand on so many projecting parts ; and at half a 
mile from the southernmost lie two rocks, and a third two miles 
further south, which were not before noticed. On the north side of 
Smoky Cape, the coast falls back four or five miles to the westward, 
forming a bight in the low land, where there may probably be a 
shallow inlet ; it afterwards resumed a northern direction, and con- 
sisted as before of sandy beaches and stony points. 
Our consort was not yet in sight ; but we kept on until five 
in the evening, when the nearest land was two miles off, and the 
northern hummock on Smoky Cape bore S. 4“ W. nine leagues. I 
had before seen the coast further northward, as far as 29 0 20' ; and 
having therefore no inducement to lose a night's run for its exami- 
nation, we steered onward, passing without side of the Solitary Isles. 
Sunday 25. At three in the morning, hove to until day-light; and at eight o’clock 
made the south head of a bay discovered in the Norfolk ( Introd. 
p. cxciv), and named Shoal Bay. One of the marks for finding 
this small place is a peaked hummock on the low land, thirteen 
miles distant ; and it was now set over the south head of the bay at 
S. 20° W. In steering northward close along the coast, we passed 
two small reefs, and the water shoaled to 10 fathoms ; they lie two 
miles off the land, and there did not seem to be any safe pas- 
sage within them. Our latitude at noon was 29 0 4', and longitude 
by time keepers 153 0 31' ; the shore was three miles off, but until we 
came up with Cape Byron at five in the evening, there was no pro- 
jection worthy of being particularly noticed. From Shoal Bay to 
Cape Byron is fifty miles, where the coast, with the exception of two 
or three rocky heads, is mostly low and sandy ; and the soundings, 
at from two to four miles off, vary between 10 and 32 fathoms^on a 
sandy bottom. A few miles back the land rises to hills of moderate 
elevation, which were poorly covered with wood in the southern 
part, but towards the cape had a more fertile appearance. 
Cape Byron is a small steep head, projecting about two miles 
