July 26.

After one of those soft and lovely evenings so common to this part of Australia, with a gentle breeze and cloudless sky, we were surprised to find that the morning opened dreary and gloomy.  There was a very fresh South-South-East wind with heavy masses of clouds; the breeze continued until noon, when as usual it subsided.  We moved the ship a few miles down the opening in the south side of the strait, and in the afternoon a party went on shore near Cape Hotham.  We found the country very poor and sandy, and elevated about fifteen feet above high-water mark.  Despite this, the white gum-trees appear to thrive, growing in great abundance, about thirty or forty feet high; there were also others of a different kind, besides a few palms.  The rocks were red sand and ironstone blended together.  In some places I noticed it had the same glazed and vitrified appearance, as before remarked by me at King’s Sound, on the North-West coast.

Mr. Bynoe, who was of the party, added to his collection of birds, a kingfisher, and a specimen of a glossy species about the size and colour of an English blackbird; others were seen and killed, but all common to other parts; the most rare of the latter was the large cream-coloured pigeon I have alluded to, some few pages back.

NATIVE COMPANION.

The white ibis with a black neck, plentiful in King’s Sound, and a large bird, a species of crane, were also seen.  The latter was of a French grey hue, with the exception of the head, which was black and of the shape of a bittern, commonly known among the colonists by the name of native companion.  It is difficult to imagine how this name could have originated, as there is no instance of the natives making a pet of anything, except the wild dog of the country, and of that only, it is probable, from its utility in procuring them food.  On visiting this place a few days afterwards, to repeat the observations for the errors of the chronometers, we saw a few natives, but they avoided an interview, disappearing when we landed.  They made the same motions with their arms, throwing them open, and bowing as the natives in King’s Sound did.  The few huts I fell in with, reminded me of one I had seen near the North-West part of King’s Sound, a representation of which will be found in the portion of the work descriptive of that locality.

Those on Cape Hotham, to enter more into particulars, did not exceed five feet in height, nor were they so substantially built; they were, however, well thatched with the same kind of coarse grass.  The entrances were carefully closed, except in one instance, when the aperture was so small that it was with difficulty I could crawl in; when I had entered there was nothing to gratify my curiosity.

NATIVE CLOTHING.

Hanging on trees round these habitations, were specimens of an article of clothing, never before seen among the Aborigines of Australia, for which reason I have been induced to give the woodcut of one.* It is a kind of covering for the shoulders, a species of cape, made from coarse grass.