l thirteen serviceable guns. Besides these, there were
two small, highly-ornamented guns used for firing signals, which were
said to have been obtained from the wreck of the _Royal George_ at
Spithead. There were also provided ample stores of round shot and grape
for the guns, and a due proportion of small arms, boarding pikes,
tomahawks, &c."

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.

*