through which it flows--its present condition, its
future destiny, are all subjects, to which, though I may have cursorily
alluded before, I am under promise to the reader of returning. Of that
promise, therefore, I now tender this in fulfilment.

The Victoria falls into the Indian Ocean in latitude 14 degrees 40
minutes South and longitude 129 degrees 21 minutes East, being at its
confluence with the sea, between Turtle and Pearce Points, twenty-six
miles wide. The land upon either side as you enter the river is bold and
well defined, but from the margin of the western shore, an extensive mud
and mangrove flat, not entirely above the level of high-water, and
reaching to the base of a range of hills, about seventeen miles from the
water's edge, seems to indicate that at one time the waters of the
Victoria washed the high land on either side.

For the first thirty miles of the upward course, the character of the
river undergoes but little change. The left side continues bold, with the
exception of a few extensive flats, sometimes overflowed, and a
remarkable rocky elevation, about twenty-five miles up, to which we gave
the name of The Fort, as suggested by its bastion-like appearance, though
now called Table Hill in the chart. To the right the shore remains low,
studded with mangroves, and still, from appearance, subject to not
unfrequent inundations: towards the mouth, indeed, it is partially
flooded by each returning tide. Thirty-five miles from its mouth its
whole appearance undergoes the most striking alteration. We now enter the
narrow defile of a precipitous rocky range of compact sandstone, rising
from 4 to 500 feet in height, and coming down to the river, in some
places nearly two miles wide, in others not less than twenty fathoms
deep, and hurrying through, as if to force a passage, with a velocity
sometimes not less than six miles an hour.

NATURE OF THE COUNTRY.

It continues a rapid stream during its passage through this defile, an
extent of some thirty miles, and beyond it is found slowly winding its
way towards the sea across a rich alluvial plain, fifteen miles in width.
Above this plain is found a second range of similar character and
formation to that before mentioned; the stream, however, having of course
somewhat less both of width and depth, and flowing with a decreased
rapidity. The elevation of the hills on either side was at first entering
considerably less than in the former range; they had al