Half a mile further on, and we are under the Signal Hill, and standing on one side of a wide, flat rock, through which a boat passage has been cut by convict hands, when first the white tents of the soldiers were seen on the Barrack Hill.  And here, at this same spot, more than a hundred years ago, and thirty before the sound of the axe was first heard amid the forest or tallow-woods and red gum, there once landed a strange party of sea-worn, haggard-faced beings—­six men, one woman, and two infant children.  They were the unfortunate Bryant party—­whose wonderful and daring voyage from Sydney to Timor in a wretched, ill-equipped boat, ranks second only to that of Bligh himself.  For Will Bryant, an ex-smuggler who was leader, had heard of Bligh’s voyage in the boat belonging to the Bounty; and fired with the desire to escape with his wife and children from the famine-stricken community on the shores of Port Jackson, he and his companions in servitude stole a small fishing-boat and boldly put to sea to face a journey of more that three thousand miles over an unknown and dangerous ocean.  A few weeks after leaving Sydney they had sighted this little nook when seeking refuge from a fierce north-easterly gale, and here they remained for many days, so that the woman and children might gain strength and the seams of the leaking boat be payed with tallow—­their only substitute for oakum.  Then onward they sailed or rowed, for long, long weary weeks, landing here and there on the coast to seek for water and shell-fish, harried and chased by cannibal savages, suffering all the agonies that could be suffered on such a wild venture, until they reached Timor, only by a strange and unhappy fate to fall into the hands of the brutal and infamous Edwards of the Pandora frigate, who with his wrecked ship’s company, and the surviving and manacled mutineers of the Bounty, who had surrendered to him, soon afterwards appeared at the Dutch port.  Bryant, the daring leader, was so fortunate as to die of fever, and so escaped the fate in store for his comrades.  ’Tis a strange story indeed.

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At the end of the point of brown, rugged rocks which form a natural breakwater to this tiny boat harbour, the water is deep, showing a pale transparent green at their base, and deep inpenetrable blue ten fathoms beyond.  To-day, because it is mid-winter, and the wind blows from the west, the sea is clearer than ever, and far down below will be discerned lazily swimming to and fro great reddish-brown or bright blue groper, watching the dripping sides of the rock in hope that some of the active, gaily-hued crabs which scurry downwards as you approach may fall in—­for the blue groper is a gourmet, disdaining to eat of his own tribe, and caring only for crabs or the larger and more luscious crayfish.  Stand here when the tide is high and the surf is sweeping in creamy sheets over the lower ledges of rocks; and