Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/178

142 12th. We visited a few huts on the side of the inlet opening into Oyster Bay, and called The Little Swan Port, which is also the name of the district. Upon this inlet there were more than a dozen Pelicans. We also walked over the cultivated land of J. Hawkins. The ground adapted for cultivation is of limited extent, compared with the estate. This is generally the case throughout the Colony. On the first settlement of this place, the Aborigines killed one of the men near the house. Many other persons lost their lives by them, in the Oyster Bay or Swan Port district.

13th. We visited a free man, living in a miserable hut near the Little Swan Port, who had been notorious for the use of profane language and for cursing his eyes; and he had become nearly blind, but seemed far from having profited by this judgment. We then pursued our way through the forest, and reached Kelvedon, the residence of Francis and Anna Maria Cotton, and their large family, in which George Fordyce Story, M.D., who fills the office of District Surgeon, is an inmate. The road, which is impassable for carriages from Prossers Plains, lies along a soft salt-marsh at the head of the Little Swan Port, and past the habitations of a few distantly scattered settlers, and over the Rocky Hills—a series of basaltic bluffs divided by deep ravines, and separating the districts of Little and Great Swan Port. The forest of this part of the country is distinguishable from that of most others, by the prevalence of The Oyster Bay Pine, Callitris pyramidalis, a cypress-like tree, attaining to seventy feet in height, and affording narrow plank and small timber, which is useful in building, but not easy to work, being liable to splinter: it has an aromatic smell resembling that of the Red Cedar of America. The other trees of these forests, are the Blue, the White, and the Black-butted Gum, the Silver and the Black Wattle, and the She-Oak. The country is favourable for sheep and horned cattle, as well as for agriculture; the proximity of the sea preventing summer frosts; but it often suffers from drought.

The annexed etching, from a sketch by my friend George Washington Walker, represents the dwelling of the family at Kelvedon, which is more commodious than the houses of