thoms, steering in the direction of Valentine Island, and inside a
long sandy spit, partly dry at low-water, and extending two-thirds of the
way across.

FRESHWATER LAKE.

While waiting for the tide to rise, in order to cross this natural
breakwater, we landed, and struggled for a good mile through a mixture of
deep mud and sand, drifted, at the coastline, into hills of from
twenty-five to thirty feet high, and bound together by a long coarse
grass; immediately beyond which we came upon a small lake of fresh water,
where all the luxuriant growth of tropical vegetation was starting into
life, and presenting an almost miraculous contrast to the barren
sterility, that stamped an aspect of changeless desolation upon the rest
of this inhospitable shore. Indeed, so far as our experience extended,
upon the coasts, and within the interior of this in many respects
extraordinary continent, the want of water appears to be the chief
drawback to the fertility otherwise to be anticipated from its
geographical position: at the same time, it is quite impossible to blind
oneself to the fact, that further researches on the one hand, and the
application of the great discoveries in hydraulics, of which recent years
have been so fruitful, on the other, may, and probably will, spread the
vernal bloom of cultivation over wastes, now condemned to prolonged and
arbitrary periods of drought.

This spot, which long arrested my attention, and upon which I gazed with
the selfish feeling of delight inspired by the thought that thereon never
before had rested the curious eye of any restless and indefatigable
wanderer from the west, is distant about 500 yards North-North-West, from
a solitary patch of low red cliffs, the first of this formation that
present themselves south of Foul Point.

VALENTINE ISLAND.

Extensive flats fronting the coast to the southward, almost connect it at
low-water with Valentine Island, which we reached at two P.M., just on
the top of high-water, and shortly afterwards grounded the boats in a
small bay to the westward. The greatest extent of Valentine Island is
three-quarters of a mile in an East by South direction: either extremity
is formed by high cliffs, a low valley intervening.

NATIVE FIRE AND FOOD.

On landing we found a fire still burning, near the beach, and beside it a
bundle of the bark of the papyrus tree, in which were carefully packed a
quantity of ground nuts, they were each about three-quarters of an