36 
SURVEY OF THE INTERTROPICAL 
1818. continued to roll towards us, but just as the storm 
FebT 24 . was on the point of bursting, the clouds sud- 
denly dispersed and, in half an hour, the night 
turned out as fine as it had threatened to be the 
reverse. 
25. The next morning I landed with Mr. Roe, and 
climbed the summit of Rocky Head before the 
sun rose ; in the ascent we crossed several deep 
ravines which, together with the hills, were 
thickly covered with a wiry grass, ( spmifex) 
growing over and amongst heaps of rocks that 
were piled up in all directions as if it had been 
done purposely ; the greater part of the surface 
of the island being covered with these stones, we 
had a considerable difficulty in advancing, and 
it was not without some labour that we ar- 
rived at the summit of the hill. Here the 
view was very extensive ; the coast to the 
eastward of Cape Preston, trends inward and 
forms a bay, the shores of which are very low. 
The land on which we were, appeared to be 
the south-westernmost island of a considerable 
archipelago; and the land, to the eastward, was 
observed to be rocky and high, in comparison 
to the low sandy country we had been lately 
passing. 
From Dampier’s description of Rosemary 
Island, I was, at first, induced to think that 
