mostly employed in salting them for the homeward bound voyage.

At length, Mr. Bass was able to execute the project he had formed for the
seven convicts. It was impossible to take them all into the boat;
therefore to five, whom he set upon the main land, he gave a musket, half
his ammunition, some hooks and lines, a light cooking kettle, and
directions how to proceed in their course toward Port Jackson. The
remaining two, one of whom was old and the other diseased, he took into
the boat with the consent of the crew, who readily agreed to divide the
daily bannock into nine with them. He then bore away, with a fresh wind
at west, round Furneaux's Land.*

[* I have continued to make use of the term Furneaux's Land conformably
to Mr. Bass' journal; but the position of this land is so different from
that supposed to have been seen by captain Furneaux, that it cannot be
the same, as Mr. Bass was afterwards convinced. At our recommendation
governor Hunter called it WILSON'S PROMONTORY, in compliment to my friend
Thomas Wilson, Esq. of London.]

From Jan.26 to Feb. 1, Mr. Bass was detained by eastern gales from
proceeding on his return. The boat lay in _Sealers Cove_, whilst he
occupied the time in examining Wilson's Promontory. The height of this
vast cape, though not such as would be considered extraordinary by
seamen, is yet strikingly so from being contrasted with the low, sandy
land behind it; and the firmness and durability of its structure make it
worthy of being, what there was reason to believe it, the boundary point
of a large strait, and a corner stone to the new continent. It is a lofty
mass of hard granite, of about twenty miles long, by from six to fourteen
in breadth. The soil upon it is shallow and barren; though the brush
wood, dwarf gum trees, and some smaller vegetation, which mostly cover
the rocks, give it a deceitful appearance to the eye of a distant
observer.

Looking from the top of the promontory to the northward, there is seen a
single ridge of mountains, which comes down, out of the interior country,
in a southern direction for the promontory; but sloping off gradually to
a termination, it leaves a space of twelve or sixteen miles of low, sandy
land between them. This low land is nearly intersected by a considerable
lagoon on the west, and a large shoal bay, named _Corner Inlet_, on the
east side; and it seemed probable, that this insulated mass of granite
has been entirely surrounded by the sea