On the 24th Mr. Roe visited the Cape to fix on the post a memorial of our visit; an inscription was carved upon a small piece of wood in the back of which was deposited another memorandum written upon vellum; the wood was of the size of the sheave-hole of the larger post, into which it was fixed, and near it Mr. Roe piled up a heap of stones. After this was accomplished the party walked for some distance along the beach to the south-west of the cape, where they found the remains of two or three whales that had been lately wrecked; a small piece of putrefied flesh was also seen, about two or three feet long, one side of which was covered with red hair, it was however too far gone to ascertain to what animal it belonged.
On examining into the state of our dry provisions it was mortifying to find that the rats and cockroaches had destroyed an incredible quantity, particularly of our biscuit and flour. In one of the casks of the latter more than two-thirds of its contents was deficient. The biscuit was completely drilled through and the greater part would not have been thought fit to eat if we had possessed any of a better quality; I still however hoped to have a sufficiency on board to complete the survey of the north-west coast before our return to Port Jackson, which I now found would of necessity be at least four or five weeks before the time I had fixed upon when we left the Mauritius. As it would take up a great portion of the time we had now left to make a more extensive examination of Shark's Bay than what the French have already performed, and would entirely prevent my going upon the north-west coast again; it was determined that we should not delay here, but pass on and resume our examination of the coast at Cape Cuvier, the northern head of the bay. The only part of Shark's Bay that seems to be at all interesting, and to require further examination, is the eastern side of the bay immediately opposite to the Islands of Dorre and Bernier; but from the very intricate and shoal nature of its approach it is very doubtful whether even a sight of the land in that direction could be procured.
The rocks of Dirk Hartog's Island are of a very remarkable formation, consisting of a congeries of quartzose sand, united in small circular kernels by a calcareous cement in which some shells were found embedded. The geological character of this rock is more fully treated upon in the Appendix by my friend Dr. Fitton.
"Upon the summit of the cliffs there are a few low shrubs, at this time much parched up, but among them Mr. Cunningham found a tolerably rich harvest. In his collection were the following plants, which were originally brought to Europe by Dampier; namely, Trichinium incanum, Br.; Diplolaena dampieri, Desf.; solanum, a thorny ferruginous species without fructification (Solanum dampieri ?) Dampiera incana, Br.; and a cordate melaleuca, figured by Dampier*: a beautiful loranthus (teretifolius, Cunningham) grew on the branches of an undescribed acacia (Acacia ligulata, Cunningham manuscript):"..."many were the wrecks of most interesting plants, and especially those of soft herbaceous duration, which had some time since fallen a sacrifice to the apparent long-protracted drought of the season; but it was impossible, amidst the sad languor of vegetation, not to admire the luxuriant and healthy habit of an undescribed species of pittosporum (oleifolium, Cunningham manuscript) which formed a small robust tree, ten feet high, laden with ripe fruit. We could perceive no traces either of remains of fires, or otherwise of natives, in the whole length of our walk along the edge of the cliffs or the plains, but we saw two snakes of very distinct kinds, each exceeding five feet in length; the one black with a yellow belly, the other green and black, but they quickly escaped into holes, leaving a serpentine impression of their bodies upon the sand. These marks were seen and remarked near the edge of all the holes, which were very numerous upon the surface of the island, before I discovered that they were the tracks of reptiles, from which it may be inferred that these animals are very abundant. The only bird seen was a solitary species of loxia, but upon a steep ledge of rocks I observed one of those nests of which frequent mention has been already made: I examined and found it built upon the pinnacle of some large rocks, very strongly constructed of long sticks; it was about five feet high and exceeded four feet in diameter, with a very slight cavity above; and seemed to have been very recently inhabited. The rocks that formed its base were ornamented with a prostrate capparis, or calyptranthus (Calyptranthus orbicularis, Cunningham manuscript) which afforded me good flowering specimens. In my walk I started a small black kangaroo: it was feeding upon the seeds of a small acacia and, upon perceiving my approach, fled across the down without reaching a single bush or rock large enough to conceal itself as far as the eye could discern it, so bare and destitute of vegetation are these arid, sandy plains."* The heat of the weather was so great as not to allow of any communication with the shore, excepting between daybreak and eight o'clock. Mr. Cunningham's visits were therefore necessarily much confined: this precaution I found it absolutely requisite to take to prevent the people from being exposed to the very great heat of the sun, which on shore must have been at least twenty degrees more powerful than on board, where the thermometer ranged between 71 1/2 degrees at midnight, and 85 and 87 degrees at noon. The barometer ranged between 29.76 and 29.99 inches, and stood highest when the wind was to the eastward of south, with which winds the horizon was much clearer, and the air consequently drier than when the wind blew from the sea.
(*Footnote. Cunningham manuscript.)
As an anchorage during the summer months Dirk Hartog's Road has everything to recommend it, excepting the total absence of fresh water which, according to the French, was not found in any part of Shark's Bay; the anchorage is secure and the bottom clear of rocks. There is also an abundance of fish and turtle, and of the latter a ship might embark forty or fifty every day, for they are very sluggish and make no effort to escape, perhaps from knowing the impossibility of their scrambling over the rocky barrier that fronts the shore, and dries at half ebb. Of fish we caught only two kinds; the snapper, a species of sparus, called by the French the rouge bossu, and a tetradon which our people could not be persuaded to eat, although the French lived chiefly upon it. There are some species of this genus that are poisonous but many are of delicious flavour: it is described by M. Lacepede in a paper in the Annal. du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle (tome 4 page 203) as le Tetrodon argente (Tetrodon argenteus).
January 26.
On the 26th we sailed and passed outside of Dorre and Bernier's Islands; nothing was seen of the reef that lies in mid-channel on the south side of Dorre Island: a rippling was noticed by Mr. Roe in an East by South direction from the masthead at twenty minutes before one o'clock but, if the position assigned to it by the French is correct, we had passed it long before that time. At six o'clock Kok's Island, the small rocky islet that lies off the north end of Bernier's Island, bore North 83 degrees East, distant seven miles.
January 27.
The following morning at daylight the land was seen in the North-East and at half-past eight o'clock we resumed our course and passed Cape Cuvier, a reddish-coloured rocky bluff that presents a precipitous face to the sea. The coast thence takes a North by East direction; it is low and sandy and fronted by a sandy beach, occasionally interrupted by projecting rocky points; those parts where patches of bare sand were noticed are marked upon the chart.