1792 February

Friday 17th Very Cloudy Weather and Squally, Wind West and WNW.

Employed Wooding and Watering with the utmost dispatch. Received on Board 2 Launch Loads of Wood. We have takien off no Water, because I found these Strong Winds had effected it by causing an influx of the Sea which has rendered it brackish. Employed compleating the Holds and on various necessary Duties.

From an extreme anxiousness to get some equal altitudes and other Astronomical Observations, I have watched every bright interval in this Day, as I have hitherto done, but to my great moritification it has not been in my power to complete a single observation.

Our Botanists are Zealously employed and have travelled back so far as on the Top of Nelson's Hill, which I have named after Mr. Nelson who was Botanist in my last Voyage and the first Man ever on it. This Hill lies S10°E 3 Miles Distant as a Bird flies from the West End of the Beach. The Top is covered with small Trees than the parts below, but none of the Forrest kine; so that the Summit of it appears to be bare. On the Top of the Hill is a large oblong Rock of Granite, o which a Dozen Men may stand with ease. It is 9 feet high on one Side and seven on the other. Most of the Summits of the Hills they found covered with large Stones, or rocky. The Woods thick, and in some places scarcely penetrable. The Soil a fine Vegetable loam, and fit to produce any European Grain. About 3 or 4 Miles from the Beach they found at the foot of a Hill, a small Spring of Water, and in tracing it in their way back, found it to connect with some brackish Water at the East end of the Beach. In parts of the Stream they caught some Trout about 6 Inches long. On Nelson Hill they found no mark of Fire, so that we may readily suppose the Natives do not take the trouble to go near it.