The gently-sloping hills of Middle Island afford about forty acres of pasture land, well covered with grass, and thinly wooded. No fresh water was seen, but it might probably be obtained by digging. This island is little frequented by aquatic birds, from the circumstance of its being accessible, at low water, to the inhabitants of the main.

Nov. 7. Mr. Bass and myself landed on the south shore upon our respective pursuits. The sandy point at the back of Middle Island was particularly favourable to the survey; and a base of sixty-six chains measured round it, with the concomitant angles, enabled me to connect the eastern arm with the basin. The sloop had been completed with water in the morning, and was ready to proceed in continuation of the voyage; but the width of the arm, the depth of water in it, and strength of the tides, were too strong indications of a river of extensive course for me to be able to quit it without some further examination.

(Atlas, Pl. VII.)

A rainy gale from the eastward did not allow of moving until Nov. 9th; we then got under way with the flood tide, and beat up the first, or Long Reach, against a south-east wind. Abreast of Point Rapid (see the chart), where the river turned sharp round to the south-west, I went away in the boat to examine the upper end of Long Reach; but the haste required in following after the sloop, which the tide assisted in driving fast upward, allowed me to do it but very cursorily. In Crooked Reach, I stopped at two places, and measured a short base near Glen Bight. The sloop was then lost to view, although the wind had died away; and on reaching Brush Island, it was not easy to know which way she had taken, Round-head Bay having as much the appearance of being a continuation of the river, as had Whirlpool Reach. This reach stretches south-eastward, and its width is much less than in any of the lower parts of the river, being no more than a short quarter of a mile; but, as might be expected, the depth in it, from 10 to 22 fathoms, is greater, and its borders are steep and rocky. At the end of Whirlpool Reach, the banks of the river opened out so considerably that, from our little boat, it appeared like a sea, the land at the further end being scarcely distinguishable. Fortunately, we got sight of the sloop in Anchor Bight before it was dark, and carried with us another black swan.

Nov. l0, being under the necessity of going down to Brush Island, to bring the survey up from thence to the position of the sloop, we did not get under way till near noon. The wind was from the westward, and I went forward in the boat to Egg Island, so named from the number of eggs, mostly of the gull and red bill, which were there found. It is small and stony; but covered with grass, and had not been visited by the natives. My next station was on the opposite side of the river, upon a low sandy point which is lengthened by a dry shoal. These project out from the general line of the southern shore, and contract the river to less than half a mile; whereas its width above and below, is one mile and a half. On the east, or lee side of this point and shoal was a flock of swans, in number not less than from three to five hundred; and their cast quills were so intermixed with the sand, as to form a component part of the beach. This countless number of quills gave me an insight into the cause why so many of the swans, though not young birds, were unable to fly: they moult their wing feathers, probably at stated periods, though not, I should think, every year. This sandy projection was named Swan Point.

On steering southward from thence, I found that the bight in which this great number of birds had assembled, was full of shoals producing the long aquatic grass which forms the principal part, if it be not their sole food. We sailed through the flock, and might have procured a good number, had not the progress of the sloop obliged us to hasten onward to Shoal Point: one incautious bird was caught by his long neck as we sailed past him.

The change in the direction of the river, from south-east to south, made the extension of a new base necessary. From the end of Shoal Point, I ran thirty-two chains westward, across a small stream of fresh water; and having taken the necessary angles, returned to the sloop, which had then anchored at half a mile from the point, in 4 fathoms. The shoal was dry in the evening, within two cables length of the vessel, and rendered the fresh stream inaccessible to a boat.

The time of our absence from Port Jackson being restricted to the beginning of January, I did not think it advisable to take the sloop any further up the river; but determined, after devoting one day more to an excursion in the boat, to return and proceed along the north coast of Van Diemen's Land, in prosecution of the main object of the voyage.

Nov. 11, Mr. Bass landed near Shoal Point, to go as far back into the country as the limited time would permit. I steered from thence over to a red bank on the east side of the river, measured a base of seventy nine chains, and took angles from a variety of stations. At the Crescent Shore, the river was contracted to a quarter of a mile in width, the water was half fresh, and the depth across as follows: 1½, 3, 5½, 8, 8½, 12½, 11, 6, 4 fathoms at half flood.

The direction of the river, from where the sloop was lying to this part, is nearly S. S. W.; but it then winds round the Crescent Shore, and runs E. S. E. My uppermost station was upon a hill near the water side, at the commencement of this new reach; and from thence the river appeared, at the distance of a mile and a half, to reopen out its banks, and to turn more southward. In an eastern direction, across the wide part, there were three ridges of hills, and beyond them some blue peaks and caps of distant mountains, which I judged to be the same we had seen from Cape Portland; and amongst which the source, or some of the sources of this river most probably arose. The distance of these mountains concurred with the strength of the tides and the depth of water to indicate, that, at the Crescent Shore, the larger half of the river still remained to be explored.*