Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/20

14 had gone in quest of another retreat, where they deemed themselves in more safety.

After an hour's walk, we rested in a low place, where the waters from the neighbouring hills were collected. To several species of leptospermum this moisture was so well suited, that they had grown up to very large trees; though all that I had hitherto found in other places were but little shrubs. Some here were more than thirty yards high, though the trunk was not eight inches in diameter. One species was remarkable for its bark, which was about an inch thick, and composed of a great number of flakes, lying one over another, very easily separable, and as thin as the finest Chinese paper. This singular organization of the bark occurs only in New Holland: it is nearly the same in the eucalyptus resinifera; and I had observed it also on the south-west coast of this country, on two large trees, one belonging to the family of protea, the other to the myrtles.

We soon found a current of air opposite to the strong breezes from the south-west. Near we saw the marks of a fire, which appeared to have been lately burning. The natives had left there part of a stalk of fucus palmatus (the palmated or sweet fucus,) which the natives eat, after they have