Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1.: With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During; The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43.; By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative; Of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea.Stokes, John Lort
History
Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1.: With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During; The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43.; By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative; Of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea.
Stokes, John Lort
Australia -- Description and travel; Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Natural history -- Australia
We landed in a small sandy bay at the western end of a growth of
mangroves, fringing the shore behind the islands. The sandbank fronting
them we found to extend to the bay we landed in; to the westward of it
there was deep water close to the shore. Wood and water might easily be
obtained in this bay, a circumstance that may give it value in the eyes
of future navigators, as it did in ours.
Before ascending the hill we crossed a flat clothed with rich grass, out
of which we flushed several Pheasant-cuckoos.* We found one of their
nests on the ground containing four eggs, in size and colour they
resembled the domestic pigeon. The nimble manner in which these birds hop
along the branches of trees, with their long tails whisking behind, give
them, at the first glance, more the appearance of monkeys than birds.
(*Footnote. Centropus Phasianellus.)
A NEW VINE.
We found here the gouty-stem tree of large size, bearing fruit; and also
a vine, which, from all the information I have since been able to
collect, appears to be quite a new specimen;* it bore a small but
well-tasted black berry, similar in shape and general appearance to the
grape sometimes seen climbing over the cottage doors in England. Each
fruit contained three large seeds, in shape and size resembling the
coffee berry. It was growing in a light sandy soil, and the temperature
to which it was exposed varies from 76 to 110 degrees. It is a matter of
great regret that I was not able to introduce this new species of vine
into England; the seeds and specimens of it having been unfortunately
destroyed by mice and insects. I was, however, more fortunate at Sydney
and Swan River.
(*Footnote. From the description I gave of this vine to Sir W. Hooker he
thought it quite new.)
COMPASS HILL.
We at length gained the top of Compass Hill, which we found to be a
slight mound on a platform of coarse sandstone formation, with fragments
of quartz; the sandstone was tinged with red, and appeared to be
crumbling away; a straggling growth of white eucalypti covered the crest
of this height, which rather spoilt the view we had promised ourselves;
however, by climbing several of them, I managed to see all round.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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