PORT WESTERN.

Leaving Port Phillip, we surveyed the coast to the eastward, and anchored in the entrance of Port Western, after dark on the 10th.  Next morning we examined the south-west part of Grant island, and moved the ship to a more secure anchorage off its North-East point.  Port Western is formed between Grant and French islands in rather a remarkable manner:  two great bays lie one within the other, the inner being nearly filled up by French island, whilst the outer is sheltered by Grant Island, stretching across it almost from point to point, and leaving a wide ship-channel on its western side, whilst on the eastern the passage is narrow and fit only for boats and small vessels.

Gales between North-West and South-West detained us here until the 19th.  We found water by digging on the North-East extreme of Grant Island, which at high tide is a low sandy islet.  On first landing there, we found in a clump of bushes a kangaroo, very dark-coloured, indeed almost black.  His retreat being cut off he took to the water, and before a boat could reach him, sank.  This not only disappointed but surprised us; for in Tasmania a kangaroo has been known to swim nearly two miles.  Black swans were very numerous, and it being the moulting season, were easily run down by the boats.  Their outstretched necks and the quick flap of their wings as they moved along, reminded us forcibly of a steamboat.  At this season of the year when the swans cannot fly, a great act of cruelty is practised on them by those who reside on the Islands in Bass Strait, and of whom I have before spoken as sealers:  they take them in large numbers and place them in confinement, without anything to eat, in fact almost starve them to death, in order that the down may not be injured by the fat which generally covers their bodies.

Scarcely any traces are now to be found of the old settlement on a cliffy point of the eastern shore of the harbour.  The rapid growth of indigenous vegetation has completely concealed all signs of human industry, and the few settlers in the neighbourhood have helped themselves to the bricks to build their own homes.

We noticed, however, one or two remaining indications of the fact that a settlement had formerly existed on that spot, among others an old flagstaff still erect, on a bluff near the North-East end of Grant Island.  A very large domestic cat, also, was seen on the South-East point, doubtless another relic of the first settlers.

The rocks chiefly to be met with at Port Western are analogous to those of the Carboniferous series.  Over its eastern shore rises a range of woody hills to the height of between five and seven hundred feet, stretching away in a North-East direction.  This harbour presents one very curious feature, namely, a sort of canal or gut in the mud flats that front the eastern side of Grant Island.  Its depth varies from six to seven fathoms, whilst the width is half a mile.  The most remarkable object, however,