June 16.
At daylight of the 16th, we passed outside the Palm Islands at the distance of five miles.
The weather continued so thick and rainy, that Mount Hinchinbrook was quite concealed from our view; but a partial glimpse of the land enabled me to distinguish Point Hillock, and afterwards to see Cape Sandwich, Goold Island, and the group of the Family Isles.
June 17.
In passing the largest Frankland Island, the San Antonio was seen lying at anchor near it, with her fore topsail loose, firing guns: seeing this, we hauled to the wind, and made sail to beat up towards her, under the idea of her being in distress; but as we approached, we observed a boat alongside, and her top-gallant yards across, which were proofs that she was not in such immediate danger, as to require our beating up, with the risk of losing some of our spars, for the Dick had already sprung her jib-boom; we, therefore, hove the vessels to, and soon afterwards the San Antonio joined and passed under our stern, when Mr. Hemmans informed me that the guns he had fired were intended as signals to his boat, and that they were not meant for us. He had been aground, he said, on a reef near the Palm Islands, but had received no damage: light, however, as he pretended to make of this accident, it was a sufficient lesson for him, and we soon found he had profited by it, for instead of preceding us, he quietly fell into our wake, a station which he never afterwards left, until all danger was over, and we had passed through Torres Strait.
I had now determined upon taking up an anchorage round Cape Grafton during the continuance of the bad weather, and for that purpose steered through the strait that separates the cape from Fitzroy Island; and anchored in six fathoms mud, at about half a mile from its northern extremity.
It is little remarkable that the day on which we anchored should be the anniversary of the discovery of the bay; for Captain Cook anchored here on the eve of Trinity Sunday, fifty-one years before, and named the bay between Capes Grafton and Tribulation, in reverence of the following day. In passing between Cape Grafton and Fitzroy Island, eight or ten natives were observed seated on the rocks at the south end of the beach: one of them waved his spear to us as we passed, but the distance was too great to take any notice of him.
In the afternoon we landed upon the small island in the bay, and found it to be separated from the mainland by a very shoal channel, through which our boat had some difficulty in passing; the island is small, and formed of loose fragments of granite, over which the decomposed vegetable matter had formed a soil, which, although shallow, was sufficient to nourish some luxuriant grass (panicum) and a robust species of eucalyptus: among these large flights of cockatoos and parroquets were hovering, but they were very shy, and did not allow us to approach them: a small dove, common to other parts of the coast, was killed. A native was seen walking along a sandy beach behind the island, but proceeded without noticing our boat, which was at that time passing.
June 18.
The following day the weather was so clear that, in the early part of the morning, we distinctly saw the summit of the land at the back of Cape Tribulation, bearing North 43 degrees West (magnetic); it must have been fifty-five or sixty miles off; the fall of the land towards the extremity of the cape was also seen, bearing North 35 degrees 50 minutes West fifty-six miles.