mpts, and with much difficulty, they took one of these
creatures, and got it on board the ship. In length it was no more than
twelve feet three inches, but the body measured eight feet round. Among
the vast quantity of things contained in the stomach was a tolerably
large seal, bitten in two, and swallowed with half of the spear sticking
in it, with which it had probably been killed by the natives. The stench
of this ravenous monster was great, even before it was dead; and, when
the stomach was opened, it became intolerable.

Quite contrary, in many respects, to these sandy islands, and yet but
little superior to them in fruitfulness, are some of those which were
visited by the same enterprising voyager on the eastern coast of
Australia. Their shores were very low, so much so, that frequently a
landing is impossible, and generally very difficult, on account of the
mud; and often a vast quantity of mangrove trees are found growing in
the swamps that surround the shores, and choking the soil with a rank
vegetation. On one of these islands when a landing had been effected
without a very great deal of trouble, and a rising ground was reached,
the sides of this little eminence were found to be so steep, and were so
thickly covered with trees and shrubs, bound together and interlaced
with strong plants, resembling vines in their growth, that all attempts
to reach the top of the hill were without success. It appeared to be
almost easier to have climbed up the trees, and have scrambled from one
to another upon the vines, than to have threaded a way through the
perplexing net-work formed by these plants, beneath which all was
darkness and uncertainty.

There are, however, some few islands, which promise to become, at a
future time, inhabited and cultivated spots, being neither so entirely
naked, nor yet so choked up by a poor and hungry vegetation concealing a
thin soil, as those already described. Of these more smiling spots the
large island, off the western coast, called Kangaroo Island, may serve
for a specimen. A thick wood covered almost all that part of the island
which was seen from the ship by Captain Flinders, but the trees that
were alive were not so large as those lying on the ground, nor as the
dead trees still standing upright. Those upon the ground were so
abundant, that, in ascending the higher land, a considerable part of the
walk was upon them. No inhabitants were seen in the island, but yet it
seemed, from the