, fulfilling my prediction of the
ultimate importance of that port, which lies only twenty-seven miles
North-North-West from the entrance. Here the flat-bottomed boats, taken
out in frame, for the purpose of carrying up the camels, should be put
together, and towed from thence to the river.

A shout from Brown, who, alarmed at my lengthened absence, had come in
search of me, roused me from the reverie in which I was indulging, and
which had carried me rolling along on the back of a camel, girded round
with an anti-pleurisy belt, over many miles of the new lands of
Australia. Returning with him I rejoined the rest of the party, and we
all moved back in the silence that usually succeeds great excitement,
towards the boats. Mr. Forsyth having made the necessary observations for
latitude, we were soon following the downward course of the Albert.

KANGAROO POINT.

We reached the mouth before daylight on the 6th. This was the coldest
morning we had experienced; the thermometer being at 51 degrees with a
strong breeze from South-South-East, which rendered somewhat dangerous
the task of collecting the requisite soundings on the bar at the mouth;
the gig being once or twice nearly half filled in doing so. Behind the
eastern entrance point, was seen a large light-coloured kangaroo, which,
for want of a better, afforded us a name. Our observations refer to this
spot, Kangaroo Point, which they place in latitude 17 degrees 35 minutes
10 seconds South and longitude 7 degrees 35 minutes 50 seconds East of
Port Essington. Instead of the usual mangrove shore, the coast to the
eastward was sandy; but the most remarkable feature, hereabouts, is a
clump of tall mangroves, towering over their fellow evergreens, close to
the western entrance point. They are called in the chart the High Trees
of Flinders, having been noticed by that celebrated navigator whilst
passing at a distance from the coast. Bearing South-West 1/2 South they
guide a ship to the bar, which can only be taken at high-water springs,
when the depth averages eleven feet.* When the eastern part of this clump
of trees bears South 45 degrees West, and Kangaroo Point South 10 degrees
West the bar will have been passed, and the depth, at the same time of
tide, will be seventeen feet; when the bearing of Kangaroo Point, given,
leads up the channel, which deepens in a quarter of a mile to
twenty-three and soon after to thirty feet. The impetus given to the
water, from the first r