Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/162

 a boat approaching it in any thing like a direct course, from the middle of the harbour. By making a considerable detour, a channel can be followed of sufficient width for boats, and about eight feet deep, into the river, where the depth is also adequate to boat navigation.

In ascending the river, the channel lies in a northerly direction, with moderate windings to the east and west, for about two miles and a half, its breadth varying from two hundred to fifty yards, and altogether narrowing, as the distance from the mouth increases. In three or four places, it is contracted still more by the rocky islets, either destitute of or covered with trees. The banks are generally shelving, with a few flats occasionally intervening, but they did not appear to have much to recommend them, and two or three small creeks, which I observed to run back, were, by Mokare's account, salt.

The mahogany and red gum, of Perth, (the tyarreil and marré of the natives here) are predominant, and clothe, but in little stateliness, the low and the rising banks. At the distance I have mentioned, (two miles and a half) a streamlet of fresh water joins from the S.W., flowing, as I afterwards ascertained, between two heights of unequal elevation. The lowest one, which is on the N.W. side, is of very excellent soil, (about fifty acres) covered with thick, but at present, dried up grass, and very slightly wooded with red gum. The most elevated on the S.E. side, is of tolerable soil, (about 100 acres) a gravelly light brown loam, rather thinly wooded with the same species.

The direction of the river, ascending from this place, is, on the whole, N.E. easterly, making considerable and rapid windings for about two miles