Volume I Part 20 (1/2)

The odium of a recent murder in the vicinity co themselves just now fro for suspicion were employed in the capacity of servants and appeared sharp and intelligent lads

SAIL FROM SWAN RIVER

On the 20th of June we took leave of our friends in Western Australia, proceeding out of Owen's anchorage by a passage recommended by the Harbour-Master, in which we found half a fatho our stay there, nothing could exceed the kindness hich elcomed, and we experienced that proverbial hospitality of colonists which in this instance we shall ever res of the most sincere and heart-felt pleasure

Itit here but on our first arrival at Swan River in Noveht

At ht of the 23rd of June we passed Cape Leeuwin, the south-western extremity of the continent; named by the first discoverer in 1622, Landt van de Leeuwin or the land of Lions The hich had increased since the ale from the northward, now suddenly veered round to the ard, accoh cross-sea

GALE OFF CAPE LEEUWIN

These sudden shi+fts of wind frequently raise a very dangerous sea off Cape Leeuwin This ale we had experienced since the 30th of May, and is recorded here fro at North-East instead of at north, the usual point at which gales in these regions begin During the store, ere unceasingly attended by those majestic birds and monarchs of the ocean--the White Albatross (Dioracefully over the surface of the restless main in solemn silence, like spectres of the deep; their cal each wave in its hurried career seemed to mock the unsteady motion of our little vessel as she alternately traversed the deep hollows and lofty suale off this Cape in 1836, HMS Zebra was couns overboard)

July 6

It was our intention to have passed through Bass Strait, but finding ere unable to weather King Island bore up on the 6th for Hobart On the evening of the sae of the wind placed in one of those perilous situations in which both a good shi+p and sound gear are so hout the day, about 8 PM veered round to west, blowing a heavy gale with a high sea; and since we had now run about halfway along Van Dieerous shore under our lee Through the dis which there was incessant rain with a succession of heavy squalls, the angry voice of nature seeainst us, and it was not until the close of the next day that a slight abatement of the weather relieved our anxiety for the safety of the shi+p During the night the wind backed round to the North-West and the sky beca of the 8th we descried the south-western extremity of the land of Van Dieator, Abel Tasman, and so named by him after the Governor of Batavia, under whose authority the voyage thus croith success had been performed

TASMANIA

To this portion of Australasia I shall systematically apply the name of Tasmania, in honour of that adventurous seaman who first added it to the list of European discoveries The same principle appears to have been recently acted upon by the Govern the Bishopric of Tash authority to sanction such innovation: higher perhaps than will be required by hiator who added this island, and the scarcely less important ones of New Zealand to the empire of science, has been left without athat universal gratitude can consecrate to individual desert The insular character of Tasmania was not fully ascertained till the year 1798, when the intrepid Bass, then surgeon of HMS Reliance, while on a whaleboat cruise from Sydney, discovered the strait which bears his nah, late President of the Geological Society, in his anniversary address to that body on the 24th of May, 1841, reretted that Governnised Tasmania as the name of that island, improperly denominated Van Diemen's Land The occurrence of a second Van Diemen's Land on the northern coast of Australia occasions confusion; and since Tasman, not Van Diemen, was the first discoverer of the island, it would be but just that whatever honour the naator” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London volume 11 1841 part 1)

SOUTH-WEST CAPE

Towards 10 AM steering East by South before a long rolling sea, we passed about six miles from the South-west Cape of Tas exactly the aned to it in the present charts, but ere satisfied that it was placed at least five roup a few miles to the south-east of this cape, are also incorrectly laid down The view of this headland was of a very impressive and remarkable character, and to add to the usual effect of its lonely and solitary grandeur, a heavy sea still vexed and swelling fro ina thousand feet precipitously above the level of the sea, and terap behind it

The adjacent coast had a singularly wild, bare, and stored and treeless sides of barren hills; and here and there, where vegetation struggled with sterility, its stunted growth and northern inclination caused by the prevailing winds testified to an ungenial clih the thick clouds that girdled them, and the whole coastline forcibly reo

BRUNY ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE

On opening d'Entrecasteaux Channel, we observed a splendid lighthouse erected by Sir John Franklin, on the South-West extre vessels clear of the shoals in the mouth of that channel, forht of the hoped-for shore, upon which he hthouse appears admirably chosen, and itcut in the woodland behind it In alluding to the great iation of d'Entrecasteaux Channel, by the erection of the lighthouse on Bruny Island, it able exertions of Lieutenant Burnett, RN, who had been appointed Marine Surveyor to the colony by the Aders In prosecuting this service, I grieve to say, his life was lost, by the upsetting of a boat in one of those sudden gusts of hich sweep down the steep valleys on the sides of that channel This sudden termination of Lieutenant Burnett's labours has been deplored alike by the colony, and by the profession of which he was so bright an orna North-West wind, which quite vindicated the title of the bay to the naress, that it was hthouse at the entrance of the Derwent River, and after dark before we reached Sullivan's cove, Hobart

Although the passage up the river was tedious and annoying frohout the day, ere alht to our view, and to which the remembered aspect of the shores we had so recently quitted, seehtful verdure

As we proceeded, we noticed since our last visit, several bare patches in the woodlands, where the axe and the brand of the enterprising colonists had prepared the way for that cultivation under the influence of which the landscape wore in places an al by turns delightful anticipation and fond regret--was heightened by the occasional addition ofbanks of the river, and adding to the luxuriant appearance of the country, the peaceful grace and sanctity of home

July 19

We were detained at Hobart till the 19th, the bad state of the weather rendering it i chronometers, etc