On our way we steered through strong tide-ripplings in which, at times, notwithstanding the strength of the breeze, the cutter was quite ungovernable.

Off the bay is a low mangrove island which I had the pleasure to name after the Reverend James W.
Burford, of Stratford, Essex, and the bay in which we had anchored was called after W.Aiton, Esquire, of the Royal Gardens at Kew.
The bottom of Aiton Bay is shoal and apparently terminates in an inlet or creek; at low water the tide left a considerable space dry that appeared to extend from shore to shore.
Our distance from the beach was so short that the howlings of dogs were distinctly heard, and other noises were distinguished which some of us thought were made by natives, but they were more probably the screams of birds.
April 28.
At daylight the next morning we steered round the land, and passing under the base of Mount Roe, we entered a strait that separates it from Greenhill Island; which is remarkable for having its north-west end terminated by a conspicuous bluff.

The coast now took an easterly direction as far as the eye could reach, with a channel of from three to eight miles broad between it and a range of islands (which were named in compliment to the late Vice-Admiral Sir George Hope, K.C.B., then holding a seat in the Board of Admiralty).

At noon the tide began to ebb, when we anchored near the land at about six miles east of Mount Roe.
The thermometer now ranged between 80 and 90 degrees, but the heat was by no means oppressive.
April 29.
By the next day at noon we had penetrated four leagues within Sir George Hope's Islands, when the water became so shoal that we could not approach an opening that was seen in the land to the south-eastward; after trying in several directions, the cutter was anchored, and Mr.Roe was sent to sound in a south direction in search of a passage out; but, as it appeared to be shoal and some parts were already dry, it was decided that we should return by the way we came; since our object was not so much to lay down the extent of the banks and directions of the channels, as to find rivers, and trace the coastline.

The opening to the South-East of our anchorage certainly appeared to be sufficiently interesting to examine, but we had formed very sanguine expectations of discovering something of much greater importance at the bottom of the bay, and we were naturally anxious to reach it as soon as possible.
On constructing the chart of this part of the coast, it appeared that the land to the eastward of this anchorage is an isthmus four or five miles in breadth, separating the body of water from the bottom of Mountnorris Bay.