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Cudlip had examined the entrance the previous night near high water, and discovered six feet over the bar. We examined it again, and found eight in one place. The deepest water is close to the starboard shore coming in. Some of the men discovered, a short way round the head, close to the beach, fresh water flowing from the sand hills.
November 25th.—Left Port Leschenault at forty-five minutes past 4 a.m., and having rounded the breakers which extend off the head, about half a mile N.E. by N., and stood along a sandy beach with frequent rocks at the water's edge, we entered Port Vasse at fifty minutes past 9, through a narrow entrance, with only one foot and three quarters of water at low water, but tide flowing, and so indistinct, that had it not been for the pelicans and gulls which were sitting on the beach close by it, we should have had difficulty in perceiving it at a few yards' distance. Both here, at Port Leschenault, and the Estuary of the Murray River, we always found these birds assembled at the entrance, whether of the harbour itself or of the rivers into it, and they were of considerable utility in directing us. A short way inside the beach we found the channel again very shallow; also narrow, and the main branch taking a northerly direction, parrellel to the beach, and only separated from it by a few sandy knolls; another branch continued past the opening for one or two hundred yards to the southward, and terminated without any communication. The land adjoining, and to the distance of some hundred yards, is an uneven plain, composed of raised and low places, the former being a tolerable mixture of sand and mould, producing some herbs, shrubs, chiefly liguminous, and trees, for the most part septospermi; the latter is covered with
