manly conduct. To guard against accidents, they were supplied
with provisions for eleven weeks, and on this service they sailed on the
8th of the last month, July, and proceeded to the Northward.

At half past seven in the morning of Sunday the 9th they sounded, but
without finding ground with fifteen fathoms of line, at the distance of
half a mile from a small reef of black rocks, which ran off from a
sugar-loaf point. There were two very low, and therefore dangerous rocks,
lying at S 20 degrees E three or four miles, and SE about two miles from
this point. Captain Cook passed this part of the coast in the night, and
therefore did not see the rocks; but they required to be particularly
looked out for by any vessel coming near the land.* The latitude of the
point is about 32 degrees 27 minutes S, Cape Hawke lying N 1 degree or 2
degrees E from it; and the intermediate coast was mostly beach, but
divided at intervals by short stony heads.

[* This and other nautical observations made by Lieutenant Flinders
are inserted, as it is presumed they (never having been published)
may be of use to such ships as may hereafter be employed in the whale
fishery upon the coast.]

Sounding with ten fathoms of line at half a mile distance from the shore
of Cape Hawke, they got ground. The two hills here mentioned by Captain
Cook were found to stand upon the pitch of the Cape, and were covered
with brush down to the low cliffs. The strata in these cliffs lay forty
or fifty degrees from the horizontal line. From the Cape the coast falls
back, forming a kind of double bay. The land was low, and rose, but very
gradually, ridge over ridge inland to a moderate height, the country
looking pleasant enough from the sea; but the trees appeared small, and
mixed with brushwood.

At daylight in the morning of the 10th they perceived the vessel to have
been carried by an extraordinary current considerably to the southward of
their expected situation, and at noon their latitude gave them a
difference of thirty-three miles, which current they attributed to their
being five or six leagues off the shore; for in the preceding twenty-four
hours, when she was close in with the shore, the difference between the
observation and the log was eight miles in her favour.

They found this morning that the sloop had unfortunately sprung a very
bad leak, which admitted so much water as kept one pump constantly at
work. By its coming on suddenly, it was judged not