Finding no encouragement to continue our researches, and the next morning both wind and weather being favourable, I weighed anchor and put to sea. To this harbour I gave the name of Port Palliser, in honour of my worthy friend Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser. It is situated in the latitude of 49° 3ʹ S. in the longitude of 69° 37ʹ E., and five leagues from Howe’s Foreland, in the direction of S. 25° E. There are several islands, rocks, and breakers lying in and without the entrance, for which the annexed chart of the coast, and sketch of the harbour, may be consulted. We went in and out between them and the north head; but I have no doubt that there are other channels.
As we were standing out of Port Palliser, we discovered a round hill, like a sugar-loaf, in the direction of S. 72° E., about nine leagues distant. It had the appearance of an island lying at some distance from the coast; but we afterwards found it was upon the main land. In getting out to sea, we had to steer through the winding channels amongst the shoals. However, we ventured to run over some of them, on which we never found less than eighteen fathoms, and often did not strike ground with twenty-four; so that, had it not been for the sea-weed growing upon all of them, they would not have been discovered.
After we had got about three or four leagues from the coast, we found a clear sea, and then steered east till nine o’clock, when the Sugar-loaf hill, above mentioned, which I named Mount Campbell, bore S. E., and a small island that lies to the northward of it, S. S. E., distant four leagues. I now steered more southerly, in order to get in with the land. At noon, the latitude by double altitudes was 49° 8ʹ S.; and we had made eighty miles of E. longitude from Cape St. Louis.[[134]] Mount Campbell bore S. 47° W., distant about four leagues; a low point, beyond which no land was to be seen, bore S. S. E., at the distance of about twenty miles; and we were about two leagues from the shore.
The land here is low and level.[[135]] The mountains ending about five leagues from the low point, a great extent of low land is left, on which Mount Campbell is situated, about four miles from the foot of the mountains, and one from the sea-coast. These mountains have a considerable elevation, as also most of the inland ones. They seemed to be composed of naked rocks, whose summits were capt with snow. Nor did the valleys appear to greater advantage. To whatever quarter we directed our glasses, nothing but sterility was to be seen.
We had scarcely finished taking the bearings at noon, before we observed low land opening off the low point just mentioned, in the direction of S. S. E., and eight miles beyond it. This new point proved to be the very eastern extremity of this land, and it was named Cape Digby. It is situated in the latitude of 49° 23ʹ S., and in the longitude of 70° 34ʹ E.
Between Howe’s Foreland and Cape Digby, the shore forms (besides the several lesser bays and harbours) one great bay that extends several leagues to the south-west, where it seemed to lose itself in various arms running in between the mountains. A prodigious quantity of sea-weed grows all over it, which seemed to be the same sort of weed that Mr. Banks distinguished by the name of fucus giganteus.[[136]] Some of this weed is of a most enormous length, though the stem is not much thicker than a man’s thumb. I have mentioned, that on some of the shoals upon which it grows, we did not strike ground with a line of twenty-four fathoms. The depth of water, therefore, must have been greater. And as this weed does not grow in a perpendicular direction, but makes a very acute angle with the bottom, and much of it afterwards spreads many fathoms on the surface of the sea, I am well warranted to say, that some of it grows to the length of sixty fathoms and upward.
At one o’clock (having run two leagues upon a S. E. 1⁄2 E. course, from noon) we sounded, and found eighteen fathoms’ water, and a bottom of fine sand. Seeing a small bending in the coast, on the north side of Cape Digby, I steered for it. It was my intention to anchor there, if I should find it might be done with safety, and to land on the Cape, to examine what the low land within it produced. After running in one league, we sounded again, and found thirteen fathoms; and, immediately after, saw a shoal right before us, that seemed to extend off from the shore, from which we were distant about two miles. This discovery obliged us to haul off, E. by S., one league, where our depth of water encreased to twenty-five fathoms. We then steered along shore, and continued in the same depth, over a bottom of fine sand, till Cape Digby bore west, two leagues distant, when we found twenty-six fathoms.
After this we did not strike ground, though we tried several times; but the ship having a good deal of way, ran the line out before the lead could reach the bottom; and being disappointed in my views both of anchoring and of landing, I would not shorten sail, but pushed forward, in order to see as much of the coast as possible before night. From Cape Digby, it trends nearly S. W. by S. for about four or five leagues, or to a low point, to which, in honour of her Majesty, I gave the name of Point Charlotte; and it is the southernmost on the low coast.
Six leagues from Cape Digby, in the direction of S. S. W. 1⁄2 W., is a pretty high projecting point, which was called Prince of Wales’s Foreland; and six leagues beyond that, in the same direction, and in the latitude of 49° 54ʹ S., and the longitude of 70° 13ʹ E., is the most southerly point of the whole coast, which I distinguished by the name of Cape George, in honour of his Majesty.
Between Point Charlotte and Prince of Wales’s Foreland, where the country to the south-west began again to be hilly, is a deep inlet, which was called Royal Sound. It runs in west, quite to the foot of the mountains which bound it on the south-west, as the low land before mentioned does on the north. There are islands lying in the entrance, and others higher up, as far as we could distinguish. As we advanced to the south, we observed, on the south-west side of Prince of Wales’s Foreland, another inlet into Royal Sound; and it then appeared, that the Foreland was the east point of a large island lying in the mouth of it. There are several small islands in this inlet; and one about a league to the southward of Prince of Wales’s Foreland.