Volume II Part 14 (1/2)
It was evident, that land so much exposed to the violence of extensive oceans must have undergone some very material changes, by the incessant attrition of their vast waves. Two of the isles, either from this or a more sudden cause, have so far deviated from their centre, that their parallel strata form angles of between sixteens and eighteen degrees in one instance, and in another between twenty-five and thirty degrees, with the horizontal line. But it is difficult to explain, by the action of water, how a large block of the white stone without strata is caused to overhang an almost perpendicular corner of one of the islands, which beneath that block consists of the dark coloured stone lying in strata.
De Witt's Isles, (so named, probably, by Tasman) twelve in number, are of various sizes. The two largest are from three to four miles in circuit.
Their sides are steep, but their height is inferior to that of the main.
The largest is the lowest. The smaller isles are little more than large lumps of rock, of which that named by Captain Cook the mew stone is the southernmost. Their aspect, like that of the main, bespeaks extreme sterility; but, superior to the greater part of it, they produce a continued covering of brush; and upon the sloping sides of some of their gullies are a few stinted, half dead gum trees.
They could not account for the vestiges of fires that appeared upon the two inner large islands; the innermost in particular, which lay at some distance from the nearest point of the main, was burnt in patches upon different parts of it. It must have been effected either by lightning, or by the hand of man; but it was so much unlike the usual effects of the former, that, with all its difficulties, they chose to attribute it to the latter cause.
A great smoke that arose at the back of one of the bights showed the main to be inhabited; but they could not suppose the people of this place to be furnished with canoes, when those of Adventure Bay, in their neighbourhood, were unprovided with them. Nothing, therefore, was left to their choice, but to allow that they might transport themselves over, either upon logs of wood, or by swimming across: and, as the most probable reward of such an exertion would be the capture of birds, whilst breeding, or the seizure of their eggs, the utility of spreading fires in facilitating such operations is obvious.
The south cape may be easily distinguished from any other projection in its vicinity. Besides being the southernmost, it is a promontory making like a foreland, and sloping very gradually as it runs towards the sea, where it ends in a perpendicular cliff.
About sunset the fresh NW wind died away suddenly; and a strong squall from the westward, with thunder, lightning, and heavy rain, soon carried them round the south cape, and, by dark, brought them off what was formerly called Storm Bay, where they hauled to the wind with the sloop's head up the bay, intending, in the morning, to proceed by this Storm Bay pa.s.sage into the Derwent river.
The night was squally, and by day light the next morning (the 14th), it was found that the vessel had drifted across the mouth of Storm Bay, or more properly Storm Bay Pa.s.sage. Tasman's Head, its eastern point, bore NE distant three miles. Being too far to leeward to fetch up the pa.s.sage, and the gale continuing, they bore away round Tasman's Head, and hauled up along sh.o.r.e for Adventure Bay.
Nothing remarkable was observed about Tasman's Head, except two small islands lying off it, at the distance of half or three quarters of a mile; and close to them were the two conical basaltic rocks named by Captain Furneaux the Friars. The vegetation upon the inner most of the two small islands had been burnt in a manner similar to that on the De Witt's isles. If it were possible to account for those fires in any other way than by the agency of man, it would be more satisfactory, than to suppose that people, always believed to be without canoes, had crossed over from a rather steep and rocky head, to an island equally rocky, but more steep.
Having pa.s.sed Fluted Cape, a fine piece of basalt, and Penguin island, they fetched up under Cape Frederick Henry, the north point of Adventure Bay; but, as the wind blew strong directly off it, and the sloop was light and leewardly, they bore away round the Cape Frederick Henry, hauling upon the north side of it into the bay of that name, purposing to go into the Derwent river, discovered a few years since by Mr. Hayes, master of the s.h.i.+p _Duke_, of Bengal: but, finding that they were likely to lose ground by tacking, they stood into Henshaw's bay (so named by Hayes), and were greatly surprised to find that, instead of its being a mere shallow bight, as laid down in Mr. Hayes's chart, it extended many miles to the northward. The whole now bears the name of Frederick Henry Bay; that given by Hayes is lost. In this very extensive bay they remained a week, traversing and measuring various parts of its sh.o.r.es.
The surrounding country was found to be miserable, presenting but very little that was fit even for pasturage, and none good enough for cultivation, except near a shallow lagoon on the west side, on the border of which were seven or eight hundred acres of low ground, of a black mould, rather sandy, which might be cultivated with great advantage.
Contiguous to the best part, was a large fresh water swamp, overgrown with reeds and bulrushes.
In the evening of the 21st they entered the mouth of the Derwent.
In pa.s.sing between two islands, the heads of the seaweed, which, from its size, is named the Gigantic, were showing themselves above the surface in six or eight fathoms water: a diminutive plant when compared with those of the kind seen in higher lat.i.tudes, but of vast magnitude in comparison with the generality of seaweeds.
On their various movements in the Derwent, Mr. Ba.s.s is silent, confining his narrative to a general account of what he learned and saw of the neighbouring country.
If the Derwent river have any claim to respectability, it is indebted for it more to the paucity of inlets into Van Diemen's land, than to any intrinsic merits of its own. After a sleepy course of not more than twenty-five or twenty-seven miles to the NW it falls into Frederick Henry Bay. Its breadth there is two miles and a quarter, and its depth ten fathoms. A few hundred yards above its mouth, it is joined, on the west side, by the Storm Bay Pa.s.sage, and this union makes an island of that slip of land which is Adventure Bay. This island, the Derwent river, and the Storm Bay Pa.s.sage, were the discovery of Mr. Hayes, of which he made a chart; wherein it was found, by the minute examination of the whole scene which it now underwent, that the smallest runs had been magnified into rivers, and coves into bays and ports. Such glaring errors could not be suffered to exist; but the name, where it was possible, was retained, though the geographical term was necessarily altered.
This dull lifeless stream, the Derwent, is so little affected by the tides, that its navigation is extremely tedious with a foul wind. It takes its way through a country that on the east and north sides it hilly, on the west and north mountainous. The hills to the eastward arise immediately from the banks; but the mountains to the westward have retired to the distance of a few miles from the water, and have left in their front hilly land similar to that on the east side. All the hills are very thinly set with light timber, chiefly short she oaks; but are admirably covered with thick nutritious gra.s.s, in general free from brush or patches of shrubs. The soil in which it grows is a black vegetable mould, deep only in the valleys, frequently very shallow, with occasionally a small mixture of sand or small stones. Many large tracts of land appear cultivable both for maize and wheat, but which, as pasture land, would be excellent.
The hills descend with such gentle slopes, that the valleys between them are extensive and flat. Several contain an indeterminate depth of rich soil, capable of supporting the most exhausting vegetation, and are tolerably well watered by chains of small ponds, or occasional drains, which empty themselves into the river by a cove or creek.
One mountain to the west, lying about three miles from the water, and so remarkably conspicuous as to be seen from every part of the Derwent and its vicinity, Mr. Ba.s.s ascended; and he was much surprised to find it abounding with fine tall gum-tree timber uncommonly straight.
The sh.o.r.e on the east side of the river, proceeding up, is covered with a good but shallow soil, and lightly wooded; cultivable for the greater part with any kind of grain, and the whole fit for pasturage, though, perhaps, not sufficiently watered for large cattle which require much drink.
On the west side the country rises too suddenly into stony hills to be in general so good as in most other places. It would, however, afford tolerable pasturage; and a few patches of eighty or one hundred acres each were excellent arable land.
The sh.o.r.e here, as in many other parts of the river, exhibited signs of internal or subterraneous disturbance. The strata of cliffs were broken and disjoined, lying sloping in different directions. Near a small point several pieces of petrified wood, and lumps of stone of every kind and every size, were enveloped, or rather stuck into the matter of the rock, which, although in colour much like a yellow tinged clay, yet had the usual rough porous surface peculiar to substances that have been in a state of fusion. It was here, as in other places, hard, but did not scintillate with steel, and was divided, by lines of a still harder iron-tinged stone, into squares and parallelograms of various sizes. From one of these intersecting lines, Mr. Ba.s.s took a small lump of this ferruginous stone, that seemed to have bubbled up, and to have hardened in the form of an ill-shaped bunch of small grapes. Some of the neighbouring cliffs, for several yards, were formed into basaltic columns.
In walking across one of the steep heads between two small bays, he met with a large deep hole in the ground, that appeared to have been occasioned by the falling-in of the earth which had formerly occupied its s.p.a.ce. Its extent was about twenty-two yards by seventeen; its depth perhaps sixty feet. The sides were not excavated, but rather smooth and perpendicular. They were rocks of the same yellow tinge as those of the sh.o.r.e. A little surf that washed up within it showed a communication with the river, by a narrow subterraneous pa.s.sage of some ten or sixteen feet in height, and, according to the distance of the hole from the edge of the cliff, about thirty-five yards in length. Appearances seemed to agree, that the period at which this earth fell in could not be very remote.
Continuing on the west side from Point William to Shoal Point (places named by Mr. Hayes), the land is too stony upon the hills for cultivation, but is proper for pasturage. The valleys are, as usual, adapted to grain.
The land round Prince of Wales's Cove is rather level, and frequently clayey: the worst of it produces excellent food for cattle, even up to the foot of the high mountain lying at its back. Being a stiff close soil, it is perhaps adapted to the growth of grape vines, rather than of grain. About three hundred acres of open ground, called by Mr. Hayes King George's Plains (could this have been in derision?) seem well calculated for this purpose, and for this only.
The land at the head of Risdon creek, on the east side, seems preferable to any other on the banks of the Derwent. The creek runs winding between two steep hills, and ends in a chain of ponds that extends into a fertile valley of great beauty. For half a mile above the head of the creek, the valley is contracted and narrow; but the soil is extremely rich, and the fields are well covered with gra.s.s. Beyond this it suddenly expands, and becomes broad and flat at the bottom, whence arise long gra.s.sy slopes, that by a gentle but increasing ascent continue to mount the hills on each side, until they are hidden from the view by the woods of large timber which overhang their summits. With this handsome disposition of the ground, the valley extends several miles to the SE in the figure of a small segment of a circle. The tops of its hills, though stony, produce abundance of tall timber, which, as it descends the slopes, diminishes in size, and thins off to a few scattered she oaks and gum trees, interspersed with small coppices of the beautiful flowering fern.
The soil along the bottom, and to some distance up the slopes, is a rich vegetable mould, apparently hardened by a small mixture of clay, which grows a large quant.i.ty of thick, juicy gra.s.s, and some few patches of close underwood.