Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/73

 out on the shallows she was obliged to go near. Nor were they satisfied with this partial view of our party, but almost immediately after the boat had returned seventeen of them had made a circuit, and came down to the tents, still carrying their green boughs. After a very amicable interview, during which we did not admit them close to the tents, they returned seemingly very much gratified with what they had seen, and with a few trifles which they had gotten. In the afternoon we took our boats to examine the western shore of the harbour, between the entrance and the river already discovered, as the mouth of another river was supposed to have been seen yesterday in passing; nor had we been mistaken, for we found a channel of not less than six feet deep, leading to a river of as great a depth, about a mile nearer the entrance than the former one. In ascending, the direction is very serpentine; the breadth at its mouth from ninety yards to one hundred feet at our farthest ascent, about one mile and a half from its mouth. The banks are from three to six feet deep. The surface was thickly covered with grass and other herbs, with stringy bark, and other trees, liguminous shrubs, ferns, and sow thistles, and exposed a soil of blackish brown earth, being a good mixture of loam and mould, about two feet deep. We walked thirty or forty yards from the bank, and as far as we could see the same soil and productions continued. A short way farther up, however, on a subsequent day, we found the channel much obstructed with trees, and near its banks low knolls and intervening vales, almost wholly sand, yet supporting a little herbaceous, but mostly shrubby vegetation, and the tallest and finest eycalipti (red and blue gum) trees, and banksia, we have any where discovered. Mr.