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Show 5.'36 VAN DTEMEN'S LAND. Feb. 1836. with me a guide, for I failed in a first attempt, from the thickness of the wood. My guide, however, was a stupid fellow, and conducted us to the southern and damp side of the mountain, where the vegetation was very luxuriant, and the labour of the ascent, from the number of rotten trunks, almost as great as on a mountain in Tierra del Fuego or in Chiloe. It cost us five and a half hours of hard climbing before we reached the summit. In many parts the gumtrees grew to a great size, and the whole composed a noble forest. In some of the dampest ravines, tree-ferns flourished in an extraordinary manner ; I saw one which must have been, at least, twenty feet high to the base of the fronds, and was in girth exactly six feet. The foliage of these trees, forming so many most elegant parasols, created a gloomy shade, like that of the first hour of night. The summit of the mountain is broad and flat, and is composed of huge angular masses of naked greenstone. Its elevation is 3100 feet above the level of the sea. The day was splendidly clear, and we enjoyed a most extensive view; to the northward the country appeared a mass of wooded mountains, of about the same elevation and tame outline with the one on which we were standing : to the south, the outline of the broken land and water, forming many intricate bays, was mapped with clearness before us. After staying some hours on the summit, we found a better way to descend, but did not reach the Beagle till eight o'clock, after a severe day's work. FEBRUARY 17TH.-The Beagle sailed from Tasmania, and, on the 6th of the ensuing month, reached King George's Sound, situated near the S.W. corner of Australia. We staid there eight days; and I do not remember, since leaving England, having passed a more dull, uninteresting time. The country, viewed from an eminence, appears a woody plain, with here and there rounded and partly bare hills of granite protruding. One day I went out wi~h a party, in hopes of seeing a kangaroo hunt, and walked over a good many miles of country. Every where we found the soil sandy, and very poor; it either supported a coarse vegetation of thin, March, 1836. KING GEORGE'S SOUND. 537 low brushwood and wiry grass, or a forest of stunted trees. The scenery resembled the elevated sandstone platform of the Blue Mountains; the Casuarina (a tree somewhat resembling a Scotch fir) is, however, here in greater number, as the Eucalyptus is in rather less. In the open parts there were many grass-trees ;-a plant which, in appearance, has some affinity with the palm; but, instead of being surmounted by a crown of noble fronds, it can boast merely of a tuft of coarse grass. The general bright green colour of the brushwood and other plants, viewed from a distance, seemed to bespeak fertility. A single walk, however, will quite dispel such an illusion ; and he who thinks with me, will never wish to walk again in so uninviting a country. One day I accompanied Captain FitzRoy to Bald Head; the place mentioned by so many navigators, where some imagined they saw coral, and others petrified trees, standing in the position in which they grew. According to our view, the rock was formed by the wind heaping up calcareous sand, during which process, branches and roots of trees, and landshells were enclosed; the mass being afterward consolidated by the percolation of rain-water. When the wood had decayed, lime was washed into the cylindrical cavities, and became hard, sometimes even like that in a stalactite. The weather is now wearing away the softer rock, and in consequence the casts of roots and branches project above the surface : their resemblance to the stumps of a dead shrubbery was so exact, that, before touching them, we were sometimes at a loss to know which were composed of wood, and which of calcareous matter. A large tribe of natives, called the White Cockatoo men, happened to pay the town a visit while we were there. These men, as well as those of the tribe belonging to King George's Sound, being tempted by the offer of some tubs of rice and sugar, were persuaded to hold a "corrobery," or great dancing-party. As soon as it grew dark, small fires were lighted, and the men commenced their toilet, which consisted in painting themselves white in spots and lines. As soon as all was ready, large fires were kept blazing, |