286 
A VOYAGE TO 
[ North Coast 
November; but further westward, at the northern Van Diemen’s 
Land, I apprehend it will set in at the beginning of that month, and 
continue till near the end of March. This is the season of heavy 
rains, thunder, and lightning, and should seem, from our experience, 
to be the sickly time of the year. 
It is thought to be a general rule, that a monsoon blowing 
directly in from the sea, produces rain, and from off the land, fine 
weather, with sea and land breezes; this I found exemplified on the 
west side of the Gulph of Carpentaria, where the rainy north-west 
monsoon, which then came off’ the land, brought fine weather: the 
rain came with eastern winds, which sett in occasionally and blew 
strong for two or three days together. It seems even possible, that 
what may be the dry season on the North Coast in general, may be 
the most rainy on the west side of the Gulph ; but of this I have doubts , 
According to Dampier, the winds and seasons on the north- 
west coast of Terra Australis are nearly the same as above mentioned 
upon the North Coast ; but he found the sea and land breezes, dur- 
ing the south-east monsoon, to blow with much greater strength. 
In speaking of the currents, I return to the tropical part of the 
East Coast. Within the Barrier Reefs, it is not the current, for there 
is almost none, but the tides which demand attention; and these, so 
far as they came under my observation, have been already described, 
and are marked on the charts. At a dintance from the barrier there 
is a current of some strength, at least during the prevalence of south- 
east winds; but instead of setting southward, as I have described it 
to do from Sandy Cape to Cape Howe, the current follows the direc- 
tion of the trade wind, and sets to the north-west, with some varia- 
tion on either side, at the rate of half a mile, and from thence to one 
mile an hour. This I found to continue amongst the reefs of Torres’ 
Strait, nearly as far as Murray’s Islands ; but from thence onward 
through the strait, its direction in October was nearly west, some- 
thing more than half a mile ; and so continued across the Gulph of 
Carpentaria to Cape Arnhem, with a little inclination toward the south. 
