We left our anchorage this morning for the Duperre Islands, twenty-one miles to the westward, and reached them before noon. On our way we passed in sight of the Montemont and Jomard groups, each consisting of two low, wooded islets, similar to those which we had left. As the ship went along she raised prodigious numbers of flying-fish in large schools, closely watched by frigate-birds, boobies, and terns.
UNABLE TO FIND ANCHORAGE.
The afternoon was ineffectually spent in searching for an anchorage, the pinnace and one of the cutters having been sent inshore for that purpose. In the evening the anchor was let go after a cast of fifty fathoms, but slipped off the bank, and had to be hove up again. In company with the Bramble we passed the night in standing off and on the islands, directed by bright moonlight, and a fire on the westernmost of the group which the pinnace's people had been sent in to make.
The following day was spent in a similar manner, and with the like result. The Bramble, when ordered by signal to point out the anchorage which Lieutenant Yule had found a week before, at once passed through an opening in the northern margin of the reef connected with the Duperre Isles, and brought in the smooth and moderately deep water inside, but it was not judged safe for us to follow, so the pinnace was hoisted in-board, and the ship kept underweigh all night.
August 6th.
We passed out to sea to the southward by a wide and clear channel between the Duperre and Jomard Islands. The former are five in number, all uninhabited, small, low, and thickly covered with trees. They extend over a space of about six miles on the northern margin of a large atoll or annular reef extending eleven miles in one direction and seven in another, with several openings leading into the interior, which forms a navigable basin afterwards called Bramble Haven. Inside the greatest depth found was twenty fathoms, with numerous small coral patches showing themselves so clearly as easily to be avoided--outside, the water suddenly deepens to no bottom with one hundred fathoms of line, at the distance of a mile from its edge.
WESTERN ISLANDS OF THE LOUISIADE.
For several days we continued making traverses off and on the line of barrier reefs extending to the westward, obtaining negative soundings, and occasionally communicating by signal with the Bramble, which was meanwhile doing the inshore part of the work. The next islet seen was Ile Lejeune of D'Urville, situated in latitude 10 degrees 11 minutes South and longitude 151 degrees 50 minutes East, eight miles to the westward of the nearest of the Duperre group, with a wide intervening passage. The sea-face of the barrier now becomes continuous for twenty-one miles further, its northern side broken into numerous openings, leading into shoal water. It is, in fact, an elongated, almost linear atoll, with islands scattered along its sheltered margin. After this, the barrier becomes broken up into a series of small reefs, with passages between, still preserving a westerly trend, until it ends in longitude 150 degrees 58 minutes East. Several small, low islets are scattered along its course; of these the Sandy Isles come first, three in number, two of them mere sandbanks, and the third thinly covered with trees, apparently a kind of Pandanus. The neighbouring Ushant Island (supposed to be that named Ile Ouessant by Bougainville) is larger and densely wooded, and still further to the westward we saw the two Stuers Islands, also low, and wooded. All those islets hitherto mentioned as occurring along the line of the barrier reef are of the same character--low, of coral formation, and generally wooded--and so are two others situated a few miles to the northward of the reef, and unconnected with it. These last are Kosmann Island, in latitude 11 degrees 4 1/2 minutes South and longitude 151 degrees 33 minutes East, and Imbert Island, situated thirteen miles further to the westward.
August 11th.
Today we came in sight of two groups of high rocky isles, very different from the low coral islets in the line of the barrier reef, which here ceases to show itself above water. These are the Teste and Lebrun Islands of D'Urville, the latter two in number, and of small size (the westernmost, in latitude 10 degrees 53 minutes South and longitude 150 degrees 59 minutes East) the former, a group of four, of which the largest measures two and a half miles in length, while the smallest is a remarkable pyramidal projection, to which the name of Bell Rock was given--this last is situated in latitude 10 degrees 57 1/2 minutes South and longitude 151 degrees 2 minutes East.