Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/134

 the mahogany, the red and white gum. On the higher hills, and on the poor lands, the former predominated,—on the lower lands, and sides of the hills, where good land was, the latter; there were the usual trees, such as the banksia, tea tree, &c., in this tract; as for underwood, there was great quantity in some places. From the double peaked mountain to the coast, is only about thirty miles; we made first seventeen miles to the S.W. ½ W., then sixteen or eighteen miles to the south. To attempt to say anything of the soil for a considerable distance, except that which we actually trode upon, and the open valleys and swamps, would be absurd; the underwood was so thick, that it was, in many places, with the greatest difficulty that we could get on, and occasionally we were obliged to make a road with our hatchet. The trees were principally the blue gum; and if others had not seen them, I should be afraid to speak of their magnitude; I measured one, it was, breast-high, forty-two feet in circumference; in height, before a branch, 140 or 150 we thought at least, and as straight as the barrel of a gun: from the immense growth of these trees, I formed an opinion that the land upon which they grew could not be bad; what little we did see was a brown loam, capable of any cultivation, and where the underwood was not remarkably thick, grass and herbage grew luxuriantly,—such was the character of the country generally as far as we could see; at a distance, you would suppose that the country was very undulating, and broken in places; but the height of the woods give it a much higher appearance than it really has, and being intersected with swamps and valleys, with very few trees on them, and those of stunted banksia or tea tree, they have the full advantage of their height. In these