s in the mouth of a shoal bay about
three miles deep in a West-South-West direction, the shores of which were
lined with mangroves and overlooked by a high rocky ridge. The width of
Collier Bay, at its entrance 20 miles, was here only six.

NARROW INLET.

The western shore ran in a North-West by West direction, a straight rocky
coast, over which rose abruptly a range of barren heights. The tide
stream gradually weakened as we approached the head of the bay, where it
scarcely exceeded half a knot, and the soundings decreased to seven
fathoms, with a kind of muddy sand bottom; but the clearness of the
water, and the equal duration of the flood and ebb streams, afforded the
most conclusive evidence of the small opening we now discovered in the
South-East corner of the bay being nothing more than an inlet. It bore
from this islet East-South-East four miles, yet as a drowning man catches
at a straw, so did we at this inlet, and were soon in the entrance, which
we found to be half a mile wide, with a very strong tide rushing out.
After some difficulty we landed on a high rocky island in the mouth of
it, the summit of which afforded us a good view of the inlet, which
within the entrance widened out and was about two miles deep. A point
prevented our seeing the eastern extreme, which Mr. Helpman was sent to
examine; he found it extended two miles in an East-North-East direction,
and like the other parts of it, to be lined with a scanty growth of
mangroves, and flanked by high rocky land. The shape of this inlet
resembles that of a bottle with a broad base, and being subject to a
tidal change of level of 36 feet, it is easy to imagine with what
violence such a body of water must rush through the narrow entrance to
keep on a level with the slow-moving waters of the bay outside. The cause
of this great rise of tide in the head of Collier Bay, may be attributed
to there being no escape for the vast body of water flowing into it. The
land over the depth of this inlet which I have before spoken of, as being
barren rocky heights, bounded our view to the southward; it bore
South-South-East three miles, and lies in latitude 16 degrees 25 minutes
South and longitude 124 degrees 25 minutes East being the farthest point
we determined towards the centre of the continent. The extreme position
reached in that direction by Lieutenant Lushington of Lieutenant Grey's
expedition, bears from this point, North 64 degrees East fifty miles.
Thus ter