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Chap. VI.]
AUCKLAND ISLANDS.
131
1840
between 11 p.m. and midnight, we observed some faint coruscations of Aurora Australis; but no "falling stars" were seen, although carefully looked for throughout this remarkably clear night.
During this, as well as the following three days, Nov. 16.we observed much sea-weed, although four hundred miles from any land; numerous luminous patches in the water were also passed. At eight o'clock in the evening of the nineteenth, being within twenty miles 19.of the land, and blowing a strong westerly gale, we rounded to on the port tack to wait for daylight, and tried for soundings occasionally throughout the night with from 140 to 200 fathoms, but without striking ground.
At 3.30 a.m. we bore away to the south-east, and 20.soon afterwards North-west Cape was seen directly a-head of us; a thick fog almost immediately again concealed it from our view, so that had we not fortunately got sight of it just at the time we did we should have had no other opportunity of making the land during the whole day. The wind increased to a strong gale, attended with fog and rain, and kept us in some anxiety, until the cape again appeared through the haze at less than a mile from us, and we were enabled to run along the northern side of the island under its protection. The north-west cape is a very remarkable headland, with a rocky islet and a curious conical rock off it; just to the eastward of it is a dark-looking promontory, called Black Head, with a deep cavernous indentation at its base: this we after-