After escaping this danger our course was directed to pass outside of Noble Island, in our way to which four small wooded isles were left inshore of our track, and named, at Mr. Roe’s request, after Captain Sir Christopher Cole, K.C.B.  Between this group and Noble Island two dry sands were observed.  Cape Bowen, so named by Lieutenant Jeffreys, is a remarkable projection in the hills, but not on the coast, for it rather forms a bay.  To the northward of it the hills fall back with some appearance of a rivulet, but the sandy beach was traced from the masthead, and the opening, if any, was suspected to be a stream communicating with Ninian Bay.  To the eastward of our course, abreast of Point Barrow, is a shoal, s, about three miles long, whose rocks showed their heads above the water; beyond this the weather was too hazy to observe anything.

Point Barrow is eleven miles to the northward of Cape Bowen, and is a narrow promontory forming the south head of a deep bay which I intended to anchor in and examine; for it bore the name of PORT Ninian in Lieutenant Jeffrey’s chart; but on entering it our soundings rapidly decreased to three and a half fathoms long before Point Barrow sheltered us from the wind.  After steering over to the north side and ascertaining that the shoal water extended across the bay we stood out again, and resumed a course along the most rugged and most stony land I ever saw; the stones are all of rounded form and heaped up in a most extraordinary and confused manner, as if it were effected by some extraordinary convulsion of nature.  Might they not have been of diluvian origin?  This promontory was named by Lieutenant Jeffreys, Cape Melville.  At half past one o’clock we passed between the straggling rocks which lie off the Cape and Pipon Island; and as we hauled round Cape Melville into Bathurst Bay the soundings suddenly decreased upon the edge of a bank, and our endeavours to find anchorage here were unsuccessful; we therefore stood across the bay towards Cape Flinders which is the extremity of a group of islands of high and rugged character forming the western head of Bathurst Bay.

On approaching the Cape we saw with surprise the wreck of a vessel thrown upon the rocks, with her masts and yards lying around her in the greatest confusion; her hull was divided; the stem and forecastle deck were lying in one place, and her stern frame with part of her quarterdeck in another.  At some distance from her there were some things like two boats hauled up on the beach, but not the least sign of her crew.

As it was too late in the evening to examine any further we passed on, and, rounding the Cape, anchored on its west side under a flat-topped hill, in ten fathoms and a half, sandy mud.

July 14.