for water, which oozed so fast into it, that we did not anticipate any
difficulty on that head, and the wood was both plentiful and convenient
to the beach.

It was now about the termination of the rainy season, and everything bore
the most luxuriant appearance; the grass, which covered the face of the
island, was more than six feet high, and completely concealed us from
each other as we walked to the summit of the hill, the sides of which
were very thickly wooded. Upon the edge of the beach, the pandanus, the
hibiscus, and a variety of other tropical trees and shrubs were growing,
and the sand was variegated with the long-stemmed convolvulus in full
flower.

The trees upon the hills were principally a small-sized eucalyptus, which
we cut for firewood, but the stem was generally found to be unsound, and
totally useless for any purpose excepting for fuel. Among the flowers
that were strewed about the island was a superb shrubby grevillea, with
scarlet flowers. The casuarina grew also near the sandy beach but it
seemed to prefer the exposed parts near the extremities of the sandy
projections of the land where no other tree would grow. The wood of this
tree appeared to be of a closer grain, and of a darker colour than the
species that is usually found upon the north coast.

The only edible fruit that we found was a small black grape: it bore a
very inferior resemblance to the common sweet-water grape, but the leaf
and habit are altogether different.

The centre of the bay is formed by a sandy beach; it is terminated by
cliffs of about forty feet in height, the upper stratum of which appeared
to be an indurated clay of a very red colour, occasioned by the