Volume II Part 33 (2/2)

Native Grave

The Greenough river

Natives

Leave Champion Bay

Koombanah Bay

Naturaliste Reef

Reach South Australia

Port Adelaide

Proposed Railroad

Visit Mount Barker

Encounter Bay

Native fishi+ng

Return to Adelaide

Sail from South Australia

Portland Bay

Squatters

Tour in the interior

Fertile country

View froewater

Sail for Hobart

Liberality of Sir John Franklin

Ates

Arrive at Sydney

REPORTED HARBOUR

A the news that most interested us on our arrival at Swan River, was the report of the discovery of a harbour on the west coast, near Moresby's Flat-topped Range In the Surveyor General's office I was shown a map of that portion of Western Australia by Mr Arrowsmith, ”from the surveys of Captain Grey,” whose name the port bore; and the united authorities of this talented explorer, and this celebrated geographer, would have removed all doubt from my mind as to the correctness of the report to which I have alluded, even if the alleged discovery had not taken place on a portion of the coast unvisited by Captain King or myself In the colony, however, very different opinions were held; and it was confidently h placed, by accident or otherwise, twelve miles to the southward, was no other than the bay we had previously visited, called by us Champion Bay It is true I could trace a resemblance between their southern parts; but they differed so widely in their northern--Port Grey being represented in the chart, and printed description, to be perfectly safe, and sheltered in that quarter by a point and a reef--that I saw no grounds for giving credence to the opinion industriously circulated at Swan River, that the reef and point, or perhaps the whole port, had been fabricated by the land-jobbers at home Such an opinion, however, was quite a disinterested one on their part; as an extension of the colony northwards, and the establishe, would have led to a result much desired by the country

It was in the neighbourhood of the harbour, the existence or identity of which was thus called in question, that Captain Grey had reported to have seen a fertile district; and a coland for the purpose of for a settlement there Mr Clifton, the Chief Co the opinion prevalent in the colony, did not think proper to risk the lives of the people under his charge, by conveying theht be fabulous, and to a country the fertility of which was absolutely denied; and the destination of the new settleed to the shores of the Leschenault Inlet, which held out a prospect of solid, if not brilliant, success, and possessed advantages, which, if not dazzling, were at least exe visionary

Anxious to have further inforh a personal intervieith Mr Clifton, I accompanied His Excellency Governor Hutt and the Surveyor General on a tour in the direction of the new settleht refit, and the men had a run ashore The survey of the Swan, from the entrance to Perth, was, meanwhile, undertaken by Mr Forsyth

THE GRass-TREE

Leaving Frees of liums (Xanthorroea) so the height, occasionally, of perhaps seventeen feet, with their tufted and overarching crests towering above those of srowth that were scattered over the earth around

(Footnote These trees, called Blackboys by the colonists, from the resemblance they bear, in the distance, to natives, attain, it is said, a great age, and there is a vague report that when fifty years old they are only a foot above ground)

ROAD TO AUSTRALIND

The road passes through the townshi+p of Pinjarra, on the fertile banks of the Murray Where it crosses the river, the first and only great affray took place with the natives, whose blood on that unfortunate occasion stained the waters of the reach that now slept in peaceful beauty, as if strife had never polluted its banks Here we met Mr Clifton, who accompanied us to his nenshi+p of Australind, to plant the germs of which, in the wilds of Western Australia, he and his worthy faland and all the co spot is situated on the east side of Leschenault Inlet; the approach is laid out withthe foot of a hill covered ood, whilst on the right is an open growth of trees, affording every now and then a glimpse of the beautiful estuary, with its surface just ruffled and glittering in the rays of the setting sun I was 's and thehad no idea that there was such a fertile, atered, and heavily timbered district so near the coast in Western Australia