Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/26

 crossed, is equal to any I have seen in the most cultivated timber country in those parts of Europe which I have happened to pass through.”

Brevity renders it necessary to omit Captain Bannister’s description of rich scenery, and fertile soil, which he gives in other parts of his report; but the following is an account of what may be deemed one of the most magnificent productions of nature in the vegetable kingdom.

Referring to the country passed over on the 6th and the 9th of January, this officer says,—“The trees were principally the blue gum; and, if others had not seen them, I should be afraid to speak of their magnitude. I measured one; it was, breast-high, forty-two feet in circumference, and in height before a branch, 140 or 150, we thought, at least; and as straight as the barrel of a gun: from the immense growth of these trees, I formed an opinion that the land upon which they grew could not be bad; what little we did see was a brown loam, capable of any cultivation, and, where the underwood was not remarkably thick, grass and herbage grew luxuriantly.”

It should be observed that no other expedition has explored the country described by Captain Bannister; and that as he travelled in the summer or dry season, it must have appeared, from the effects of the sun, to great disadvantage.

The country in the south-east parts of the settlement is described by an enterprising traveller, Dr. J. B. Wilson, R. N. After an excursion of ten days, which he made from King George’s Sound, this gentleman (who is a large landed proprietor in New South Wales) thus speaks of the country he observed on the eighth day:—“I have seen many far-famed views in the four ancient divisions of the globe, and have no hesitation in saying that this of the fifth (if it did not surpass) fell but little short of any of them.” Elsewhere he says,—“The timber, principally blue gum, is the finest I ever saw.”