July 19 to 21.
At daylight (19th) having laid to all night, this group was about six leagues off, bearing from South 35 1/2 to 49 degrees East, but a continuation of calms and light winds detained us in sight of them until the 21st.
This group consists of eight or nine islands, and appears to be those called by the French the Maret Isles; they are from one quarter to a mile and a half in extent, and are rocky and flat-topped; the shores are composed of steep, rocky cliffs. They are fronted on the west side by a rocky reef extending in a North-North-East and South-South-West direction.
During the calm weather, in the vicinity of this group, we had seen many fish and sea-snakes; one of the latter was shot and preserved; its length was four feet four inches; the head very small; it had neither fins nor gills, and respired like land-snakes; on each scale was a rough ridge: it did not appear to be venomous. A shark was also taken, eleven feet long; and many curious specimens of crustacea and medusa were obtained by the towing-net. Some of the latter were so diaphanous as to be perfectly invisible when immersed in the water. Among the former were a species of phyllosoma, and the Alima hyalina of Leach.*
(*Footnote. Cancer vitreus. Banks and Solander manuscripts. Lin. Gmel. tome 1 page 2991. Astacus vitreus. Fabr. Syst. ent. page 417 n. 8.)
At daylight we were about four leagues to the West-North-West of Captain Baudin's Colbert Island; at the back of which were seen some patches of the Coronation Islands. The night was passed at anchor off the northernmost Coronation Island.
July 23.
And the following afternoon we anchored at about half a mile from the sandy beach of Careening Bay.
As soon as the vessel was secured, we visited the shore, and recognised the site of our last year's encampment, which had suffered no alteration, except what had been occasioned by a rapid vegetation: a sterculia, the stem of which had served as one of the props of our mess-tent, and to which we had nailed a sheet of copper with an inscription, was considerably grown; and the gum had oozed out in such profusion where the nails had pierced the bark that it had forced one corner of the copper off.
The large gouty-stemmed tree on which the Mermaid's name had been carved in deep indented characters remained without any alteration, and seemed likely to bear the marks of our visit longer than any other memento we had left.