Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/557

Rh about a mile from shore, and our friends were landed in a row-boat on payment of one shilling each, the same fare being charged for the return trip before the departure of the vessel in the evening. King George Sound is about five miles long and nearly the same in width, and forms a good anchorage for ships. Its advantages as a naval possession were long ago recognized, the British Government having secured it by establishing a colony there in 1826. There are two entrances on opposite sides of an island called Breaksea, a massive rock that reminded Frank and Fred of Alcatraz Island, in the harbor of San Francisco, or Capri, in the Bay of Naples.

The youths were disappointed with Albany, which they had imagined to be a place of some importance. It stands on rising ground on the north shore of the harbor, and has not far from one thousand two hundred inhabitants—hardly enough to give it the dignity of a city, which most of its residents claim for it.

Frank asked how they could get away from Albany in case they had decided to travel through Western Australia.

"There is a road from here to Perth, the capital of the colony," said