Next day they found an outlet to the ocean, and sounded it as they went along, finding six feet of water on the bar at low tide. But the channel proved afterwards to be a shifting one; the strong current round Cape Howe, and the southerly gales, often filled it with sand, and it was not until many years had passed, and much money had been expended, that a permanent entrance was formed. In the meantime all the trade of Gippsland was carried on first through the Old Port, and then through the new Port Albert. For ten years all vessels were piloted without buoy or beacon; in one year one hundred and forty having been entered inwards and outwards.
The party now started on the return voyage. In going up the lakes a number of blacks were observed on the port beach, and the boats were pulled towards the land until they grounded, and some of the men went ashore. The natives were standing behind a small sand hummock calling out to the visitors. One of them had lost an eye, and another looked somewhat like a white man browned with the sun and weather, but only the upper part of his body could be seen above the sand. One of the men on shore said, "Look at that white-fellow." That was the origin of the rumour which was soon spread through the country that the blacks had a white woman living with them, the result being that for a long time the blackfellows were hunted and harassed continually by parties of armed men. When the natives behind the sand hummock saw that the white men had no arms, they began to approach them without their spears. Sheridan took up his flute, and they ran back to the scrub, but after he had played a while they came nearer again and listened to the music.
After pulling two or three miles, another party of natives was seen running along the sands, and the explorers went ashore again at a point of land where seven or eight men had appeared, but not one was now visible. Davy climbed up a honeysuckle tree, and then he could see them hiding in the scrub. Several of them were seized and held by the white men, who gave them some sugar and then let them go.
The boats then sailed away with a nice easterly breeze, and in McLennan's Straits hundreds of blackfellows were seen up in the trees shouting and shaking their spears; but the boats were kept away in mid-stream, out of reach of the weapons.