 Having previously arranged to travel back overland from Peking and rendezvous with Alceste at Canton , Amherst was ferried to the mouth of the Hai River on 9 August . Amherst 's mission and return journey would take several weeks , thus providing Maxwell an opportunity to explore the area . Alceste headed north while Lyra , under the command of Lieutenant Basil Hall , was ordered to explore the south . The General Hewitt , an Indiaman chartered to carry gifts for the Emperor of China , was to take the centre channel . Alceste first undertook a survey of the Gulf of Liaodong , at that time virtually unknown to Europeans and after spending some time exploring the Liaodong Peninsula , Alceste proceeded southward to Jiaozhou Bay on the coast of Shandong , where she encountered the General Hewitt , and was later joined by Hall in the Lyra . Alceste and Lyra left the bay on 29 August and proceeded eastward toward the west coast of Korea , an area that had not been surveyed since the Jesuit missionaries visited in the 16th and 17th centuries . Maxwell hence found the coast to be some 130 miles further east than expected and while there also discovered the archipelago that forms the south @-@ western tip of the Korean peninsula . Maxwell then turned his attention the Loo Choo Islands , now known as the Ryukyu archipelago , dropping anchor in the Napakiang roads on the south @-@ west side of Okinawa on 16 September 1816 . After a six @-@ week stay , Alceste returned to China , via the southern end of the island of Taiwan , arriving at the mouth of the Pearl River on 2 November . 
