ast from sunset last
evening until noon, being the first land-wind we had yet experienced. The
temperature remained nearly the same as at Port Patterson, the maximum
being here 86, and the minimum 81.

October 13.

We got on board about noon, and the next day Mr. Fitzmaurice returned. He
had found Table Hill to be a perfect natural fortress, accessible only at
the South-East corner by a slight break in the line of cliffs surrounding
it; the large inlet terminated in a creek passing close at the southern
foot of the hill, where it branched off in an east and north-east
direction, and in the course of three miles, became lost at the western
extremity of some low thickly-wooded plains, which extended eastward as
far as the eye could reach. To the south lay McAdam Range, which
declining to the eastward, was at length blended with the plain, the eye
finding some difficulty in determining where the hills ended and the
plain commenced.

HOPES OF DISCOVERING A RIVER.

All the soundings and other data for the chart, in the immediate
neighbourhood, were collected by the 16th, when the ship was got
underweigh, as soon as the tide, which here rose twenty feet, was high
enough. After passing through a channel, six and seven fathoms deep,
which the dry extreme of the sandbank fronting the flat, extending off
McAdam Range, bearing South-South-East led through, we hauled over to the
westward for a swash way in the sands, extending off the north-west end
of Clump Island. In crossing the inlet, running under the south end of
McAdam Range, we found as much as ten fathoms, a depth that led to the
hope of its being of great importance, perhaps indeed the mouth of a
river. Passing between Clump and Quoin Islands, we anchored midway
between the latter and Driftwood Island, a proceeding which the approach
of high-water rendered necessary, as from the great fall of the tide we
were obliged at that time to have at least seven fathoms. We were now
surrounded on all sides by flat shores, and from the masthead, I could
trace the low land forming the western side of the principal channel. The
high land south of McAdam Range, was found to terminate in a remarkable
peak, which in the certainty of our search proving successful, we named
River Peak. It was almost blended in one with a range beyond, yet the
fact of the distance which really existed between them, did not escape
our anxious observation; and it was indeed in the different shade of
thes