Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 1.djvu/282

 SURVEY, OF THE INTERTROPICAl, ls]o. into the marove bush which concealed them J . from our view. This manouvre was evidently intended to decoy us into their power, and served to increase our caution. Soon atrwards their fires were seen about a mile behind the mangroves, and in the evening the canoe was observed to pass up the river w/th z. the same two' natives in it. On the 5th, we landed at the long north sandy point, and mea- sured a base line of 231 chaihs from the point to the end of the beach, where it is terminated by a rocky head that forms the base of a steep hil!; this we climbed, and, from its summit, ob- tained a very extensive view of the reefs near the coast; but as the weather was too hazy to. allow of our making any observation upon distant ob- jects, very few of the. reefs in the offing were distinctly seen. On the beach we passed the wreck of a Canoe, large enough to carry seven or eight persons; it 'measured nineteen feet in length, and twenty-two inches in the bilge, and appeared, like that of Blomfield's Rivulet, to be made of the trunk of the er!ithrina indica, hollowed out either by fire or by some blunt tool. A piece of teak-wood, one side of which bore the marks of green paint, was found washed up on the beach; it had probably dropped or been thrown overboard from some

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