We fetched in under the Lee of Easter Group as the north-west gale of this morning commenced. The barometer did not indicate the approach of the gale, falling with it, and acting as in those we had encountered at Swan River.
SINGULAR SUNSET.
The sunset of the two days preceding had presented a very lurid appearance, and the most fantastically shaped clouds had been scattered over the red western sky. It seemed as though nature had determined to entertain us with a series of dissolving views. Headlands and mountains with cloud-capped pinnacles appeared and faded away; ships under sail floated across the sky; towers and palaces reared their forms indistinctly amid the vapour, and then vanished, like the baseless fabric of a dream.
The winds since the 29th had been very easterly; but early on the 1st became fresh from north-east; a stagnant suspicious calm then succeeded, during the forenoon of the 2nd. At noon the glassy surface of the water began to darken here and there in patches with the first sighing of the breeze, which soon became steady at north-west, and troubled the whole expanse as far as the eye could reach.
HEAVY GALE.
It was not, however, as I have said, before daylight of the 3rd that the gale commenced in earnest, continuing with great violence, accompanied with heavy squalls of rain, till noon next day, when the wind had veered to South-South-West. During this time the whole aspect of the scene was changed; immense dark banks of clouds rested on the contracted horizon; the coral islands by which we were surrounded loomed indistinctly through the driving mist; and the decks were drenched by heavy showers that occurred at intervals. The wind blew hardest from West-North-West, and began to moderate about nine on the morning of the 4th, when it had got round to south-west. The current during this breeze set a mile and a half East-South-East, changing again to the northward as the wind veered round to the southward. This clearly shows how certainly, in this neighbourhood, the movements of the air influence those of the sea.
WATER-SPOUTS.
It was the evening of the 5th before all was again clear overhead. In the morning, however, we shifted our berth, which had been a mile from the south extreme of the detached cluster of islets forming the north-east end of Easter Group. Several small water-spouts formed near the ship as we were about to weigh, which induced us to wait a little until they passed.
On the 8th we bore away for the northern group in 26 and 27 fathoms; the space between was named Middle Passage.
WALLABY ISLANDS.