the best soil he had found after traversing the whole of the island.  According to his account it was totally unfit for rearing sheep on a large scale; the bushes and grass being so full of burrs that the wool was completely spoiled.  The soil was everywhere very inferior, and a few patches only of clean land was to be found, the principal part being overrun with dense scrub and impervious thickets.  There were few elevations on the island, and those not of any great magnitude, the loftiest point being scarcely seven hundred feet.  The formation of the neighbourhood of Captain Smith’s house was granite:  water abounds.

WEST SIDE OF KING ISLAND.

The house in which this modern Robinson Crusoe dwelt was what is called a Slab Hut, formed of rough boards and thatched with grass.  He had a garden in which grew some cabbages and a few other vegetables; but he complained sorely of blight from the west winds.  There are three varieties of kangaroos on the island, and plenty of wildfowl on some of the lagoons; so that supplies are abundant:  but the few sheep he possessed were rendered of little value from the burrs I have before mentioned.  I could not help pitying the condition of this gentleman and his interesting family—­a wife and daughter and three or four fine boys.  They had retained a few of the tastes and habits of civilized life, and I observed a good library with a flute and music in the Slab Hut.  It was with great pleasure that I afterwards learned that Captain Smith’s prospects had brightened.  He is now, I believe, a comfortable settler on the eastern side of Tasmania.

On the 29th we passed down the western shore of King Island, finding the coast to be low, treacherous and rocky.  We discovered some outlying rocks a mile and half from shore, and about eleven miles south from New Year Island.  The most remarkable circumstance we noticed in this part of our cruise, was the leafless appearance of the trees on the higher parts of the island.  It seemed as though a hurricane had stripped them of their verdure.  They reminded me strongly of a wintry day in the north.

About eight miles from the extremity of the island we discovered a bay affording good anchorage in east winds.  It was afterwards called Fitzmaurice Bay.  From its neighbourhood a long dark line of black cliffs stretches southward until within about three miles of the point, when the ground sinks suddenly, whence vessels are apt to be misled and to fancy that the island ends there, whilst in reality it stretches out into a low dangerous rocky point, named after the writer, for about three miles more.

SEAL BAY.