Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/75

1832.] the open sea. We came to anchor in the middle of a bason a mile and a half across, surrounded by hills, with little wood. One on the north, which may be 800 feet high, called Spring Hill, exhibits little but white quartz rock; which is abundant every where around. There were trees, many of which appeared to be dead, on the distant mountains. This was the first time we had taken refuge in a harbour in an uninhabited country; but solitary as it was, we were thankful for the refuge from the storm.

We remained in Port Davey seventeen days. During this time the wind was contrary, and often blew with great violence; sometimes threatening to drive the vessel on shore, notwithstanding it was moored with two heavy chain cables.

During our stay the sheep were placed on a small island, on which were a few bushes and some coarse rushy herbage, such as was also the covering of much of the adjacent shores.

There were low Gum-trees on some of the hills, and the brushwood in some of the gullies was very thick, as it was also toward the sea beach; on which, here and there, logs of the Huon Pine, a fine species of timber, were washed up. Several low shrubs of the Epacris tribe were growing in the clefts of Spring Hill: among them a species of Richea with a single head, resembling a pine-apple plant, mounted on a stick 6 feet high; two species of Decaspora—thyme-like bushes, with flattened purple berries, and Prinotes cerinthoides—a straggling little shrub, with cylindrical, inflated, pendulous blossoms, an inch long, of a deep rose colour.

I once ascended Spring Hill alone, taking the rocky part of it, which is composed of projections of white quartz, sometimes tinged with pink or blue, amongst which I could climb as on a rude stair-case. Being sheltered from observation by the rocky spires, I came among a flock of White Cockatoos, which are too shy knowingly to admit the presence of a stranger: they chattered to each other, and shook their beautiful lemon-coloured crests with an amusing degree of consequence, until at length I threw a stick among them, which dispersed the assembly. Much of the ground running