Cape Bossut.
Exploration of North-west Coast.
View of Interior.
Birds.
Solitary Island.
Visit the Shore.
Amphinome Shoals.
Bedout Island.
Breaker Inlet.
Exmouth Gulf.
Arrive at Swan River.

PORT ESSINGTON.

The period of our arrival at Port Essington had been looked forward to by
all with deep interest, and, I may say, some anxiety. Two years had
elapsed since our last visit, and various and contradictory were the
reports in circulation respecting the welfare of the settlement. We were
accordingly truly rejoiced to find it in a state of prosperity that will
ever reflect the highest credit on the hardy few who have laboured so
earnestly for its welfare. It was an emblem of the rapidity with which,
in young countries, it is possible to recover from any disaster, that the
trees which had been uprooted, shattered, and riven in fragments by the
hurricane of 1839, were for the most part concealed by the fresh foliage
of the year; there was scarcely anything left to commemorate that
dreadful visitation, but the tombs of twelve brave fellows, of the
Pelorus, who lost their lives at the time.

There was a care-worn, jaundiced appearance about the settlers, that
plainly revealed how little suited was the climate for Europeans to
labour in; and yet there had been, I was told, no positive sickness. The
hospital, however, had been enlarged, and rendered a very substantial
building. Captain Macarthur had built a strong and well-contrived
blockhouse, of the excellent kind of wood, a species of teak, before
alluded to. A new garden also had been laid out, in which the banana and
pine, besides many other tropical fruits, were flourishing. The
arrow-root and sugar-cane grown here are allowed by those who have seen
these plants in the West Indies not to be surpassed in excellence; and
the cotton from Pernambuco, and Bourbon seed, has been valued in England
at sixpence-halfpenny a pound. The colonists were beginning to understand
the seasons; they had taken out of the ground sweet potatoes nearly
sufficient to last them until the next crop. This was the first time they
had been tried. I have never seen any in South America half the size. In
short, I may say that the settlement was fast approaching the state in
which was that at Raffles Bay when it was abandoned.

Considering the few days given to sporting, our game-book contains a very
tolerable list, comprising seven kangaroos, twenty quails, ten ducks,
seven pigeons, two phea