REPORTED HARBOUR.

Among the news that most interested us on our arrival at Swan River, was the report of the discovery of a harbour on the west coast, near Moresby’s Flat-topped Range.  In the Surveyor General’s office I was shown a map of that portion of Western Australia by Mr. Arrowsmith, “from the surveys of Captain Grey,” whose name the port bore; and the united authorities of this talented explorer, and this celebrated geographer, would have removed all doubt from my mind as to the correctness of the report to which I have alluded, even if the alleged discovery had not taken place on a portion of the coast unvisited by Captain King or myself.  In the colony, however, very different opinions were held; and it was confidently maintained that Port Grey, although placed, by accident or otherwise, twelve miles to the southward, was no other than the bay we had previously visited, called by us Champion Bay.  It is true I could trace a resemblance between their southern parts; but they differed so widely in their northern—­Port Grey being represented in the chart, and printed description, to be perfectly safe, and sheltered in that quarter by a point and a reef—­that I saw no grounds for giving credence to the opinion industriously circulated at Swan River, that the reef and point, or perhaps the whole port, had been fabricated by the land-jobbers at home.  Such an opinion, however, was quite a disinterested one on their part; as an extension of the colony northwards, and the establishment of a settlement near Moresby’s Flat-topped Range, would have led to a result much desired by them, the occupancy, namely, of the intervening country.  It was in the neighbourhood of the harbour, the existence or identity of which was thus called in question, that Captain Grey had reported to have seen a fertile district; and a company had actually arrived from England for the purpose of forming a settlement there.  Mr. Clifton, the Chief Commissioner, however, on hearing the opinion prevalent in the colony, did not think proper to risk the lives of the people under his charge, by conveying them to a port that might be fabulous, and to a country the fertility of which was absolutely denied; and the destination of the new settlement was, accordingly, provisionally changed to the shores of the Leschenault Inlet, which held out a prospect of solid, if not brilliant, success, and possessed advantages, which, if not dazzling, were at least exempt from the suspicion of being visionary.

Anxious to have further information on this subject through a personal interview with Mr. Clifton, I accompanied His Excellency Governor Hutt and the Surveyor General on a tour in the direction of the new settlement, whilst the ship underwent a slight refit, and the men had a run ashore.  The survey of the Swan, from the entrance to Perth, was, meanwhile, undertaken by Mr. Forsyth.

THE GRASS-TREE.

Leaving Fremantle, the first part of the road lay between low ranges of limestone hills, and through quite a forest of grass-trees, gums (Xanthorroea) some knobby, old and crooked, others erect and reaching the height, occasionally, of perhaps seventeen feet, with their tufted and overarching crests towering above those of smaller growth that were scattered over the earth around.*