Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/77

1832.] Wit, and other mountains in that direction. Losing little time in observations, and being favoured to find my way across the rocks in safety, I took to my heels upon the more open ground, and came in sight of the Tamar before the sun had set. I was much surprised not to see the boat off, as I had requested the men who came on shore for water in the morning, to come for me in the evening, saying, they might then expect to see me somewhere on the face of Spring Hill. Like men of their class, they had so little regarded the instructions, that when inquired of, a few hours after, they could give no account of me. My companion had become uneasy at my absence; and, at length, I saw him with some seamen leave the vessel in a boat and come toward the shore, and heard the V. D. Land cry of Cooey, borrowed from the Aborigines, to which I answered; but to my dismay, saw the boat again pushed from the land. Not having taken into account that sound does not readily descend, they had concluded, as they did not hear me, that I was not there. No time was to be lost. I left the rocky part of the mountain for a slope on which I hoped to run; but on reaching it, my feet slipped among a fungus resembling moistened glue—a species of Tremella?—with which the ground had become covered during the rain. I arose and fell until my legs shook under me; and giving up the hope of standing, I launched off in a sitting posture; and besmeared with this slimy vegetable, passed rapidly to the bottom of the hill. Here again I ran and shouted: my voice reached far over the still water, and the boat, to my great comfort, returned. I met it in the sea, for the purpose of washing my clothes, that previously, for several hours, had been soaked with rain, which fell at times so heavily that I had had no occasion to stoop to drink during the whole day.

While detained in Port Davey, we made an excursion, in the ship's boat, with the carpenter, to examine the northern entrance into the bason in which the Tamar lay. It proved sufficiently deep for ships of moderate size; but there is a sunken rock half a mile N. and by West of the largest pyramidal rock, which is called by the seamen Big Caroline. We also went into the southern opening, called Kelleys River,