Walker and Robbins islands, which lie together in the shape of an equilateral triangle, with sides of nine miles, front the coast about midway, and leave only a narrow boat-channel between them and the main.
On Walker Island our boats met the wives of some sealers whose husbands had gone to King Island on a sealing excursion. They were clothed like those on New Year Island. One was half European and half Tasmanian, and by no means ill-looking; she spoke very good English and appeared to take more care of her person than her two companions, who were aborigines of pure blood. A few wild flowers were tastefully entwined with her hair, which was dressed with some pretensions to elegance. They had a pack of dogs along with them, and depended in a great measure for their maintenance on the Wallaby they killed. The skin also of these animals constitutes to them an important article of trade.
It was the 15th before we had completed for the present our survey of this part, owing as I have before observed, to the constant bad weather, which was doubly felt by the boats in which all the materials for the chart of this neighbourhood were collected.
CIRCULAR HEAD.
We now examined the coast to Circular Head, under the north side of which we anchored in 7 fathoms on the morning of the 18th, after spending a day under the South-East corner off Robbins Island, where we found good anchorage in westerly winds. Making too free with the shore with a low sun ahead, we grounded for a short time on a shingle spit extending off the low point North-West from Circular Head. Three quarters of a mile East-North-East from this point is a dangerous rocky ledge just awash, on which several vessels have run. By keeping the bluff extreme of Circular Head open it may always be avoided.
The latter is a singular cliffy mass of trappean rock, rising abruptly from the water till its flattened crest reaches an elevation of 490 feet.
CIRCULAR HEAD.
South-South-East Six Miles.
This strange projection stands on the eastern side of a small peninsula. On the parts broken off where it joins the sandy bay on the north side, we found the compass perfectly useless, from the increased quantity of magnetic iron ore they contain.