There are, however, some few islands, which promise to become, at a future time, inhabited and cultivated spots, being neither so entirely naked, nor yet so choked up by a poor and hungry vegetation concealing a thin soil, as those already described. Of these more smiling spots the large island, off the western coast, called Kangaroo Island, may serve for a specimen. A thick wood covered almost all that part of the island which was seen from the ship by Captain Flinders, but the trees that were alive were not so large as those lying on the ground, nor as the dead trees still standing upright. Those upon the ground were so abundant, that, in ascending the higher land, a considerable part of the walk was upon them. No inhabitants were seen in the island, but yet it seemed, from the appearance of the trees, as though, at the distance of some years, the woods had been destroyed by fire. The soil, so far as it was seen, was thought very good, and the trees bore witness of this by their size and growth; yet so frequently do travellers, like doctors, disagree, that another explorer, Captain Sturt, pronounces this spot to be not by any means fertile. The quantity of kangaroos found here was remarkable enough to give a name to the island; and so entirely were these harmless animals strangers to the power of man, that they suffered themselves to be approached and killed without any efforts to escape. Captain Flinders, on the first day of landing, killed ten, and the rest of his party made up the number to thirty-one taken on board in the course of the day, the least weighing 69 and the largest 125 lbs. The whole ship's company were employed that afternoon in skinning and cleaning the kangaroos, and a delightful feast they afforded to men who for four months had scarcely tasted any fresh provisions. Never, perhaps, had the dominion held here by these creatures been before disturbed; the seals, indeed, shared it with the kangaroos on the shores, but they seemed to dwell peacefully together, each animal occasionally wandering into the haunts of the other, so that a gun fired at a kangaroo upon the beach would sometimes bring forth two or three bellowing seals from underneath bushes a good deal further from the water-side. The seal, indeed, was the most knowing creature of the two, for its actions bespoke that it distinguished the sailors from kangaroos, whereas the latter not uncommonly appeared to mistake them for seals. Indeed it is curious to trace the total absence of all knowledge of man in these distant isles of Australia. In another island a white eagle was seen making a motion to pounce down upon the British sailors, whom it evidently took for kangaroos, never, probably, having seen an upright animal, (except that, when moving upon its hind legs,) and naturally, therefore, mistaking the men for its usual prey.