(**Footnote.  Flinders volume 2 pages 261 to 263.)

1820.  November 1.

The following afternoon the man at the masthead reported breakers in the West-North-West, and when I went to examine from thence I was for some time equally deceived:  the helm was put up and we bore down towards them but, as we approached, they vanished and we found we had been deceived by the reflection of the sun’s rays upon the water.* After being sufficiently assured of our mistake, the course was resumed.

(Footnote.  The deceptious appearances that are frequently observed at sea, such as the reflection of the sun, ripplings occasioned by the meeting of two opposite currents, whales asleep upon the surface of the water, shoals of fish, fog-banks, and the extraordinary effect of mirage, than which, as an optical illusion, nothing is more deceiving, have doubtless given birth to many of these non-existing shoals and islands.  Were charts to be published (one does exist in manuscript, in the Hydrographical Office at the Admiralty) with all the islands and dangers laid down that have been reported by good and respectable authorities, the navigator would be in a constant fever of anxiety and alarm for the safety of his vessel.  The charts of the present day teem with examples of this sort and many islands and reefs are laid down which have not been seen since their first discovery, and which perhaps never existed at all, unless, like Sabrina Island, they were thrown up by a submarine volcano, and disappeared immediately afterwards.)

November 2.

And by the following noon we had passed the parallel of the southernmost limit assigned to these redoubtable rocks.

When we were on the starboard tack two nights before, the cutter leaked so much that we were upwards of an hour pumping out the water that had collected in three hours.

On the 2nd of November we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn in 100 1/2 degrees East.

November 4.

And on the 4th in latitude 28 degrees the trade-wind ceased:  the winds were however variable between South and South-East until we reached the latitude of 31 1/2 degrees and longitude 95 degrees 20 minutes; when the wind veered by North-East to North-West and West-North-West and we made rapid progress to the south-east.  Between the parallels of 40 and 42 degrees, we had the wind always to the westward of North by East and South by West, with the current uniformly setting to the northward, sometimes at the rate of three-quarters of a mile per hour; to the south-west of Cape Leeuwin it affected us more than one knot:  scarcely any easterly current was observed.

November 27.

On the 27th at eight p.m. we sounded in forty-eight fathoms.

November 28.

And at one o’clock the following morning saw the Black Pyramid and soon after entered Bass Strait by the passage on the south side of King’s Island.  After running into the latitude of Sea Elephant Bay on the east side of King’s Island, in an unsuccessful search after some rocks laid down in the French charts but not noticed in those of Captain Flinders, we bore up; and at eleven p.m. passed Sir Roger Curtis Island.