King next surveyed and named the Vernon Islands, and Clarence Strait.
"The time had now arrived for our leaving the coast; our provisions were drawing to an end, and we had only a sufficiency of bread to carry us back to Port Jackson; although we had been all the voyage upon a reduced allowance; our water had also failed, and several casks which we had calculated upon being full were found to be so bad that the water was perfectly useless; these casks were made in Sydney, and proved-like our bread casks-to have been made from the staves of salt provision casks: besides this defalcation, several puncheons were found empty, and it was, therefore, doubly necessary that we should resort to Timor without any more delay."
While at Timor, "Dramah," the principal rajah of the Malay fishing fleet, gave King the following information respecting the coast of New Holland, which he had frequently visited in command of the fleet that visits its shores yearly for trepang:—
"The coast is called by them 'Marega,' and has been known to them for many years. A fleet, to the number of two hundred proas, annually (this number seems exaggerated), leave Macassar for this fishery; it sails in January, during the westerly monsoons, and coasts from island to island until it reaches the north-east of Timor, where it steers S.E. and S.S.E., which courses carry them to the coast of New Holland; the body of the fleet then steers eastward, leaving here and there a division of fifteen or sixteen proas, under the command of an inferior rajah who leads the fleet, and is always implicitly obeyed. His proa is the only vessel provided with a compass; it also has one or two swivel or small guns, and is perhaps armed with musquets. Their provisions chiefly consist of rice and cocoa-nuts, and their water—which during the westerly monsoon is easily replenished on all parts of the coast—is carried in joints of bamboo. Besides trepang, they trade in sharks' fins and birds' nests."
Their method of curing is thus described by Flinders:—
"They get the trepang by diving in from three to eight fathoms of water, and where it is abundant a man will bring up eight or ten at a time. The mode of preserving it is thus—the animal is split down on one side, boiled and pressed with a weight of stones, then stretched open by slips of bamboo, dried in the sun and afterwards in smoke, when it is fit to put away in bags, but requires frequent exposure to the sun. There are two kinds of trepang, the black and the white or grey slug."
From Dramah's information, it would seem a perpetual warfare raged between the natives and Malays, which was unfortunate for King, as it would make it a very difficult matter to establish friendly communication with people who could not be expected to distinguish between the English and Malays. After a short stay in Timor, he sailed for Sydney by way of the west coast, and anchored in Port Jackson on the 29th of July, 1818.
The early loss of the anchors had not allowed King so much opportunity of detailed examination as would otherwise have been the case; but much of the work that he had been sent to do had been carried out; the examinations of the opening behind Rosemary Island, and of Van Dieman's Gulf, beside the survey of the numerous smaller openings and islands.
"Mr. Cunningham made a very valuable and extensive collection of dried plants and seeds; but, from the small size of our vessel and the constant occupation of myself and the two midshipmen, who accompanied me, we had neither space nor time to form any other collection of natural history than a few insects, and some specimens of the geology of those parts where we landed!"
The equipment of the vessel for the second voyage, and the construction of charts of the first, occupied Captain King until December, when he left Port Jackson to survey the entrance of Macquarie Harbour, which had lately been discovered, on the western coast of Van Dieman's Land, and in February, 18ig, he returned to Sydney.