It is visible for about five leagues.
Thirty miles South-West by South from Cape Preston is a mangrove bight, with several openings communicating with a large lagoon, or body of water, at the base of a small range of hills.

The bight is shoal and thickly studded with sandy islets.

Hence the coast extends to the South-West by West, fronted by mangroves for about forty miles, and then for about sixteen miles South-West to the entrance of Curlew River.
Between Curlew River and Cape Preston, a space of eighty-five miles, there are not less than thirty sandy islets in sight from the coast, separated from each other by channels, generally navigable, between one to five miles wide.

Good anchorage may be found among these islands, for the sea cannot fail of being smooth in the strongest winds.

The depth among these islands is from four to six fathoms, and the bottom generally of gravel or sand.
CURLEW RIVER is defended by a shoal entrance, and is merely a creek running through a low country for three miles; its banks are overrun with mangroves, and it affords no inducement whatever for vessels to visit it.
The country behind is low, and, at spring tides, or during the rainy season, is inundated.
The coast continues low and sandy to CAPE LOCKER, a distance of thirteen miles, and with the same barren character for twenty miles further, forming the east side of Exmouth Gulf.