September 28th.
On our way to the northward today, we passed Young Island, of King, which had been previously examined in one of our boats, and found to be merely a reef covered at high-water. Twenty-nine years before it was an embryo islet with two small trees upon it. And as the subject of the rate of increase of a coral reef, and of the formation of an island upon it, is a subject of interest and of great practical importance, I give below in a note* two records of the former appearance of Young Island. (*Footnote. "Passed at about three-quarters of a mile to the northward of a small rocky shoal, on which were two small trees. This particular is recorded as it may be interesting at some future time, to watch the progress of this islet, which is now in an infant state; it was named on the occasion Young Island." Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia, performed between the years 1818 and 1822, by Captain P.P. King, R.N., volume 1 page 226. Its appearance in 1839 is described as "an elevated reef, with one small mangrove growing on the highest part." Stokes' Voyage of the Beagle volume 1 page 57.)
September 29th.
Passing inside of Haggerstone Island, we rounded Sir Everard Home's group and anchored under Sunday Island, where the Bramble joined us after a month's absence. This is a small, high, rocky island, of flesh-coloured compact felspar. On one side is a large patch of brush with some mangroves and a coral reef.
BIRD ISLES.
A few days afterwards we ran down to the Bird Isles, and anchored. They are three low, wooded islets, one detached from the other two, which are situated on the margin of a circular reef.
NATIVES IN DISTRESS.
On the north-west island we saw a small party of natives from the mainland, consisting of two men and a boy, in great distress from want of water, until Lieutenant Yule kindly supplied their wants. They had been wind-bound here for several days, the weather for some time previously having been too boisterous to admit of attempting to reach the shore, although only a few miles distant, in their split and patched-up canoe. This was of small size, the hollowed-out trunk of a tree, with a double outrigger, and altogether a poor imitation of that used by the islanders of Torres Strait; the paddles were of rude workmanship, shaped like a long-handled cricket-bat. Their spears and throwing sticks were of the same kind as those in use at Cape York, to be afterwards described. These people were wretched specimens of their race, lean and lanky, and one was suffering from ophthalmia, looking quite a miserable object; they had come here in search of turtle--as I understood. Each of the men had lost a front tooth, and one had the oval cicatrix on the right shoulder, characteristic of the northern natives, an imitation of that of the islanders. They showed little curiosity, and trembled with fear, as if suspicious of our intentions. I made a fruitless attempt to pick up some scraps of their language; they understood the word powd or peace of Torres Strait.
On this island the principal trees are the leafless Erythrina, with waxy, pink flowers. Great numbers of pigeons resorted here to roost. I found here a large colony of that rare and beautiful tern, Sterna melanauchen, and mixed up with them a few individuals of the still rarer Sterna gracilis.
CAIRNCROSS ISLAND.