great success.  One evening through its means, in addition to plenty of fish, no less than five kinds of star-fishes and twelve of crustacea, several of which are quite new, were brought ashore.  Among the plants of the island the most important is a wild species of plantain or banana, afterwards found to range along the north-east coast and its islands, as far as Cape York.  Here I saw for the first time a species of Sciadophyllum (BRASSAIA ACTINOPHYLLA, the umbrella-tree) one of the most singular trees of the eastern coast-line of tropical Australia; a slender stem, about thirty feet in height, gives off a few branches with immense digitate dark and glossy leaves, and long spike-like racemes of small scarlet flowers, a great resort for insects and insect-feeding birds.  Soon after the ship had come to an anchor, some of the natives came off in their canoes and paid us a visit, bringing with them a quantity of shell-fish (SANGUINOLARIA RUGOSA), which they eagerly exchanged for biscuit.  For a few days afterwards we occasionally met them on the beach, but at length they disappeared altogether, in consequence of having been fired at with shot by one of two ‘young gentlemen’ of the Bramble on a shooting excursion, whom they wished to prevent approaching too closely a small village where they had their wives and children.  Immediate steps were taken in consequence to prevent the recurrence of such collisions when thoughtless curiosity on one side is apt to be promptly resented on the other if numerically superior in force...  The men had large cicatrices on the shoulders and across the breast and belly, the septum of the nose was perforated, and none of the teeth had been removed.  I saw no weapons, and some rude armlets were their only ornaments.”

Tam o’ Shanter Point derives its title from the barque of that name, in which the members of the Kennedy Exploring Expedition voyaged from Sydney, whence they disembarked on 24th and 25th May 1848.  H.M.S.  Rattlesnake had been commissioned to lend Kennedy assistance, and Macgillivray relates that everything belonging to the party (with the exception of one horse drowned while swimming ashore) was safely landed.  The first camp was formed on some open forest-land behind the beach at a small fresh-water creek.  On the 27th Mr Carson, the botanist of the party, commenced digging a piece of ground, in which he sowed seeds of cabbages, turnips, leek, pumpkin, rock and water melons, pomegranate, peach-stones and apple-pips.  No trace of this first venture in gardening in North Queensland is now discernible.  No doubt, inquisitive and curious blacks would rummage the freshly turned soil as soon as the back of the good-natured gardener was turned.  It occurred to me that possibly the pomegranate seeds might have germinated, and the plants become established and acclimatised, but search proved resultless.  Carson makes no reference to the coco-nut palm which once flourished at the mouth of the creek.  The inference