a-nut
Island, and this is the best, because there is good anchorage in it, the
water in the other being too deep: We entered the harbour by the
south-east passage, and went out of it by the north-west. At the
south-east end of the harbour there is a large cove, which is secure
from all winds, and fit to haul a ship into. Into this cove a river
seemed to empty itself, but our boats did not examine it. In the
north-west part of the harbour there is another cove, which our boat did
examine, and from which she brought us very good water; this also is fit
for a ship to haul into, and very convenient for wooding and watering:
She may lie in any depth from thirty to five fathom, and at any distance
from the shore, with a bottom of soft mud. The harbour runs about S.E.
by S. and N.W. by N. and is about three miles long, and four cables'
length broad. We anchored in thirty fathom, near the north-west
entrance, and a-breast of the trees on Cocoa-nut Island.

SECTION VI.

_Discovery of a Strait dividing the Land called Nova Britannia into two
Islands, with a Description of several small Islands that lie in the
Passage, and the Land on each Side, with the Inhabitants._

When we got about four leagues off the land, after leaving this harbour,
we met with a strong gale at E.S.E. a direction just contrary to that
which would have favoured our getting round the land, and doubling Cape
Saint Maria. We found at the same time a strong current, setting us to
the N.W. into a deep bay or gulph, which Dumpier calls St George's Bay,
and which lies between Cape St George and Cape Orford. As it was
impossible to get round the land, against both the wind and current, and
follow the track of Dampier, I was under the necessity of attempting a
passage to the westward by this gulph, and the current gave me hopes
that I should succeed. When I had got, therefore, about five miles to
the south-west of Cocoa-nut Island, I steered to the N.W. and the N.N.W.
as the land trends, and had soon good reason to believe that what has
been called St George's Bay, and thought to be formed by two points of
the same island, was indeed a channel between two islands, and so the
event proved it to be.

Before it was dark, we found this channel divided by a pretty large
island which I called the _Duke of York's Island_, and some smaller
islands that were scattered about it. On the southermost side of the
main, or the largest of the two islands that are divided by