This page needs to be proofread.
344
SURVEY OF THE INTERTROPICAL
CHAPTER IX.
Equipment for the third voyage:—Leave Port Jackson:—Loss of bowsprit, and return:—Observations upon the present state of the colony, as regarding the effect of floods upon the River Hawkesbury:—Re-equipment and final departure:—Visit Port Bowen:—Cutter thrown upon a sand-bank:—Interview with the natives, and description of the country about Cape Clinton:—Leave Port Bowen:—Pass through the Northumberland, and round the Cumberland Islands:—Anchor at Endeavour River:—Summary of observations taken there:—Visit from the natives:—Vocabulary of their language:—Observations thereon in comparing it with Captain Cook's account:—Mr. Cunningham visits Mount Cook:—Leave Endeavour River, and visit Lizard Island:—Cape Flinders and Pelican Island:—Entangled in the reefs:—Haggerston's Island, Sunday Island, and Cairncross Island:—Cutter springs a leak:—Pass round Cape York:—Endeavour Strait:—Anchor under Booby Island:—Remarks upon the Inner and Outer routes through Torres Strait.
June 21.In preparing our little vessel for a third voyage, it became requisite to give her a considerable repair; and, among many other things, there was an absolute necessity for her being fresh coppered; but, from the pretended scarcity of copper sheathing in the colony and other circumstances that opposed the measure, we found more than a common difficulty in effecting it. The cutter was careened at a place appointed for the pur-
