rounded and partly bare hills of granite protruding. One day I went out
with a party, in hopes of seeing a kangaroo hunt, and walked over a
good many miles of country. Everywhere we found the soil sandy, and
very poor; it supported either a coarse vegetation of thin, low
brushwood and wiry grass, or a forest of stunted trees. The scenery
resembled that of the high sandstone platform of the Blue Mountains;
the Casuarina (a tree somewhat resembling a Scotch fir) is, however,
here in greater number, and the Eucalyptus in rather less. In the open
parts there were many grass-trees,--a plant which, in appearance, has
some affinity with the palm; but, instead of being surmounted by a
crown of noble fronds, it can boast merely of a tuft of very coarse
grass-like leaves. The general bright green colour of the brushwood
and other plants, viewed from a distance, seemed to promise fertility.
A single walk, however, was enough to dispel such an illusion; and he
who thinks with me will never wish to walk again in so uninviting a
country.
One day I accompanied Captain Fitz Roy to Bald Head; the place
mentioned by so many navigators, where some imagined that they saw
corals, and others that they saw petrified trees, standing in the
position in which they had grown. According to our view, the beds have
been formed by the wind having heaped up fine sand, composed of minute
rounded particles of shells and corals, during which process branches
and roots of trees, together with many land-shells, became enclosed.
The whole then became consolidated by the percolation of calcareous
matter; and the cylindrical cavities left by the decaying of the wood,
were thus also filled up with a hard pseudo-stalactical stone. The
weather is now wearing away the softer parts, and in consequence the
hard casts of the roots and branches of the trees project above the
surface, and, in a singularly deceptive manner, resemble the stumps of
a dead thicket.
A large tribe of natives, called the White Cockatoo men happened to pay
the settlement a visit while we were there. These men, as well as those
of the tribe belonging to King George's Sound, being tempted by the
offer of some tubs of rice and sugar, were persuaded to hold a
"corrobery," or great dancing-party. As soon as it grew dark, small
fires were lighted, and the men commenced their toilet, which consisted
in painting themselves white in spots and lines. As soon as all was
ready, large fires were kept blazing, round which the women and
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