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with me a guide, for 1 failed in a first attempt, from the
thickness of the wood. My guide, however, was a stupid
fellow, and conducted us to the southern and damp side of
the mountain, where the vegetation was very luxuriant, and
the labour of the ascent, from the number of rotten trunks,
almost as great as on a mountain in Tierra del Fuego or in
Chiloe. It cost us five and a half hours of hard climbing
before we reached the summit. In many parts the gum-
trees grew to a great size, and the whole composed a
noble forest. In some of the dampest ravines, tree-ferns
flourished in an extraordinary manner ; I saw one which
must have been, at least, twenty feet high to the base of
the fronds, and was in girth exactly six feet. The foliage of
these trees, forming so many most elegant parasols, created
a gloomy shade, like that of the first hour of night. The
summit of the mountain is broad and flat, and is composed
of huge angular masses of naked greenstone. Its elevation
is 3100 feet above the level of the sea. The day was
splendidly clear, and we enjoyed a most extensive view; to
the northward the country appeared a mass of wooded mountains,
of about the same elevation and tame outline with the
one on ivhich we were standing: to the south, the outline of
the broken land and water, forming many intricate hays, was
mapped with clearness before us. After staying some hours
on the summit, we found a better way to descend, but did not
reach the Beagle till eight o’clock, after a severe day’s work.
F e b r u a r y 1 7 t h .—The Beagle sailed from Tasmania,
and, on the 6th of the ensuing month, reached King George’s
Sound, situated near the S.W. corner of Australia. We staid
there eight days; and I do not remember, since leaving
England, having passed a more dull, uninteresting time.
The country, viewed from an eminence, appears a woody
plain, with here and there rounded and partly bare hills of
granite protruding. One day I went out with a party, in hopes
of seeing a kangaroo hunt, and walked over a good many
miles of country. Every where we found the soil sandy, and
very poor; it either .supported a coarse vegetation of thin,
:
low brushwood and wiry grass, or a forest of stunted trees.
The scenery resembled the elevated sandstone platform of
the Blue Mountains; the Casuarina (a tree somewhat resembling
a Scotch fir) is, however, here iu greater number,
as the Eucalyptus is in rather less. In the open parts there
were many grass-trees;—a plant ivhich, in appearance, has
some affinity with the palm; but, instead of being surmounted
by a crown of noble fronds, it can boast merely of
a tuft of coarse grass. The general bright green colour of the
brushwood and other plants, viewed from a distance, seemed
to bespeak fertility. A single walk, however, will quite dispel
such an illusion; and he who thinks with me, will never wish
to walk again in so uninviting a country.
One day I accompanied Captain FitzRoy to Bald Head;
the place mentioned by so many navigators, where some
imagined they saw coral, and others petrified trees, standing
in the position in which they grew. According to our view,
the rock was formed by the wind heaping up calcareous sand,
during which process, branches and roots of trees, and land-
shells were enclosed; the mass being afterward consolidated
by the percolation of rain-water. When the wood had decayed,
lime was washed into the cylindrical cavities, and liecame
hard, sometimes even like that in a stalactite. The weather
is now wearing away the softer rock, and in consequence the
casts of roots and branches project above the surface : their
resemblance to the stumps of a dead shrubbery was so exact,
that, before touching them, we were sometimes at a loss to
know which were composed of wood, and which of calcareous
matter.
A large tribe of natives, called the White Cockatoo men,
happened to pay the town a visit while we were there.
These men, as well as those of the tribe belonging to King
George’s Sound, being tempted by the offer of some tubs of
rice and sugar, were persuaded to hold a “ corrobcry,” or
great dancing-party. As soon as it grew dark, small fires
were lighted, and the men commenced their toilet, which
consisted in painting themselves white in spots and lines.
As soon as all was ready, large fires were kept blazing,