I cannot see the propriety of considering the sandbank, marked Number 7, as a member of the Claremont group, as, at high-water, it is a mere strip of sand 200 yards in length, with a few plants of Salsola on the highest part.
NIGHT ISLAND.
On September 8th, we anchored to the westward of the north end of Night Island, a mile off shore, and remained there for the two succeeding days. This island is two miles in length, and half a mile in breadth, surrounded by a narrow reef of dead coral and mud. With the exception of a very narrow portion fronted by a sandy beach, the place is densely covered with mangroves. A sandy portion, of about five acres in extent, is thickly covered with bushes and small trees, of which the most conspicuous is a Bombax or cotton-tree, 20 to 30 feet in height, with leafless horizontal branches bearing both flowers and fruit. Numbers of the Torres Strait Pigeon (Carpophaga luctuosa) crossed over from the mainland towards evening to roost; and at that time, and early in the morning, great havoc was usually made among them. Even this small spot produced a fine white, brown-banded Helix, not found elsewhere--it occurred on the branches of the cotton-trees.
SHERRARD ISLES.
Three days afterwards we ran to the northward ten miles, and anchored under the Sherrard Isles, where our stay was protracted until the 16th by blowing weather. These islets are two in number, a quarter of a mile apart, surrounded and connected by a reef. One is 120 yards in length, sandy, and thinly covered with coarse grass and maritime plants, with a few bushes; the other is only 30 yards across, and is covered by a clump of small trees of Pemphis acida and Suriana maritima, appearing at a distance like mangroves.
A small low wooded islet off Cape Direction, where I landed for a few hours, was found to be composed entirely of dead coral with thickets of mangrove and other bushes, and presented no feature worthy of further notice. We were detained at an anchorage near Cape Weymouth for seven days by the haziness of the weather, which obscured distant points essential to the connexion of the survey.
PIPER ISLETS.
After having anchored once for the night under the lee of reef e of King's chart--one of the most extensive we had hitherto seen, being fourteen miles in length--on September 26th, the ship anchored under the largest of the Piper Islets.
This group consists of four low bushy and wooded islets, situated on two reefs separated by a deep channel. The larger of the two on the south-eastern reef, off which the ship lay, is about half a mile in circumference. The trees are chiefly a kind of Erythrina, conspicuous from its light-coloured trunk and leafless branches; one of the most abundant plants is a Capparis, with long drooping branches, occasionally assisted by a Cissus and a Melotria, in forming small shady harbours. In the evening, vast numbers of white pigeons came over from the mainland to roost, and of course, all the fowling-pieces were put in requisition. Some deep pits dug in the centre of the island were perfectly dry, and are probably so during the latter half of the dry season, or after the month of July. On this island we observed the remains of a small establishment for curing trepang--a large seaslug found on the reefs and in shoal water, constituting a valuable article of commerce in the China market, where in a dried state it fetches, according to quality, from 5 to 200 pounds a ton. This establishment had been put up by the crew of a small vessel from Sydney, and several such have at various times made voyages along this coast and in Torres Strait, collecting trepang and tortoiseshell, the latter procured from the natives by barter.
YOUNG ISLAND.