s water and wood, for which
service they had been rewarded by a suitable distribution of biscuit. In
one instance the natives on the eastern shore of the bay had shown a
hostile tendency on the occasion of a boat landing on the reef to gather
shells. One of the seaman, who had wandered from the rest, was chased
into the sea, and menaced with spears and clubs until he was up to his
neck in water, when the boat came to his rescue, the officer in charge of
her firing a shot over their heads to drive them off. Mr. Walcott had
also been successful in obtaining a very useful vocabulary of native
words and other interesting particulars from the aborigines, as also many
botanical specimens, shells, etc.--amongst the latter some very fine
pearl-oysters, from which several pearls of good colour had been
obtained, but appeared to be principally valuable on account of the size
and beauty of the mother-of-pearl, which averaged six inches diameter,
with more than half an inch in thickness of solid shell.

PARTY REFIT FOR JOURNEY TO EASTWARD.

20th July.

The forge, stores, and other additional supplies having been landed, and
the party set to work shoeing horses, repairing saddle-bags, etc., I
proceeded with Mr. Walcott and Mr. Angel in the boat to make a rough
survey of the coves on the western side of the bay, with a view to
selecting a suitable spot from which to re-embark the horses on our
return from the next trip, as it would be too late in the season by that
time to venture the trip overland to Champion Bay. I found that a good
anchorage existed, with three fathoms at low water, one mile off the
little cove from which the ship had been watered, and is approachable at
all times, except in strong east or south-east gales, when a heavy swell
sets in across the bay, rendering a landing unsafe. The fresh water runs
down a rocky gully at the north-west corner of the cove, at the north end
of a small patch of sandy beach, and the supply appears tolerably
abundant; it is, however, rather difficult of access towards the end of
the dry season, as the water has then to be carried over the rocks in
small baracas fifty or sixty yards to the boats, but from the setting in
of the rains to the end of August it runs down strongly at high-water
mark. I walked back overland to the camp with Mr. Walcott, the distance
being about four miles, heading by the way another deep cove, the margin
of which was lined with a broad belt of mangroves.

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