, and is not large.

Were a settlement to be made at Port Phillip, as doubtless there will be
some time hereafter, the entrance could be easily defended; and it would
not be difficult to establish a friendly intercourse with the natives,
for they are acquainted with the effect of fire-arms and desirous of
possessing many of our conveniences. I thought them more muscular than
the men of King George's Sound; but, generally speaking, they differ in
no essential particular from the other inhabitants of the South and East
Coasts except in language, which is dissimilar, if not altogether
different to that of Port Jackson, and seemingly of King George's Sound
also. I am not certain whether they have canoes, but none were seen.

In the woods are the kangaroo, the emu or cassowary, paroquets, and a
variety of small birds; the mud banks are frequented by ducks and some
black swans, and the shores by the usual sea fowl common in New South
Wales. The range of the thermometer was between 61 deg. and 67 deg.; and the
climate appeared to be as good and as agreeable as could well be desired
in the month answering to November. In 1803, colonel Collins of the
marines was sent out from England to make a new settlement in this
country; but he quitted Port Phillip for the south end of Van Diemen's
Land, probably from not finding fresh water for a colony sufficiently
near to the entrance.

Point Nepean is in _latitude_ 38 deg. 18' south. The _longitude_ from twelve
sets of distances taken by lieutenant Flinders in the port, and six
others by me ten days before arriving, the particulars of which are given
in Table V. of the Appendix to this volume, is 144 deg. 301/2' east; but these
observations being mostly on one side of the moon, the corrected
longitude by time keepers, 144 deg. 38' east, is preferred.

No observations were taken in the port for the _variation_ of the
compass; but at seven leagues to the south-south-west of Point Nepean,
azimuths gave 3 deg. 41' when the ship's head was at N.E. by E. 1/2 E., and an
amplitude at N. N. E. 1/2 E., 6 deg. 48' east. The mean of these, corrected to
the meridian, will be 7 deg. 30', or half a degree less than at King's
Island; I therefore take the variation in Port Phillip to have been
generally, 7 deg., though at some stations it seemed to have been no more
than 6 deg. 30' east.

The rise of _tide_ is inconsiderable in the upper parts of the port; near
the entrance it is from three to six fe