Roebuck Bay, so named to commemorate the name of Dampier's ship, is about sixteen miles across: the southern shores are low, and extensive sandbanks and mud flats are bared at low-water.

To the northward of this point was an island and farther on to seaward a dry sandbank.

These may be seen in groups of six or eight, sunning themselves on the slimy banks of the river or on the numerous sandbanks.

The West Indian steamers at that time held their rendezvous for the collection and distribution of the mails not, as now, at St. Thomas, but at a little island called Turk's Island, a mere sandbank, hedged with coral reefs.

Our view was decisive of the fact, that all further progress eastward was at an end, but to the south sandbanks and patches of dark-coloured water bounding our view left still great hope.

At low water a considerable sandbank was exposed to our view, that had not previously been seen; it fronts the bay and is dry at low tide for some extent, it is also shoal some distance to the northward, as our boat had only four feet in passing over it.

COPELAND ISLAND is small and wedge-shaped, its summit is in latitude 11 degrees 28 minutes, and longitude 132 degrees 43 minutes; four miles and a quarter West-North-West from it is a covered sandbank having nine feet water near its edge; it was not quite certain whether it was joined to the land or not, from which it is distant two miles and a half.