of man, it would be more satisfactory,
than to suppose that people, always believed to be without canoes, had
crossed over from a rather steep and rocky head, to an island equally
rocky, but more steep.

Having passed Fluted Cape, a fine piece of basalt, and Penguin island,
they fetched up under Cape Frederick Henry, the north point of Adventure
Bay; but, as the wind blew strong directly off it, and the sloop was
light and leewardly, they bore away round the Cape Frederick Henry,
hauling upon the north side of it into the bay of that name, purposing to
go into the Derwent river, discovered a few years since by Mr. Hayes,
master of the ship _Duke_, of Bengal: but, finding that they were
likely to lose ground by tacking, they stood into Henshaw's bay (so named
by Hayes), and were greatly surprised to find that, instead of its being
a mere shallow bight, as laid down in Mr. Hayes's chart, it extended many
miles to the northward. The whole now bears the name of Frederick Henry
Bay; that given by Hayes is lost. In this very extensive bay they
remained a week, traversing and measuring various parts of its shores.

The surrounding country was found to be miserable, presenting but very
little that was fit even for pasturage, and none good enough for
cultivation, except near a shallow lagoon on the west side, on the border
of which were seven or eight hundred acres of low ground, of a black
mould, rather sandy, which might be cultivated with great advantage.
Contiguous to the best part, was a large fresh water swamp, overgrown
with reeds and bulrushes.

In the evening of the 21st they entered the mouth of the Derwent.

In passing between two islands, the heads of the seaweed, which, from its
size, is named the Gigantic, were showing themselves above the surface in
six or eight fathoms water: a diminutive plant when compared with those
of the kind seen in higher latitudes, but of vast magnitude in comparison
with the generality of seaweeds.

On their various movements in the Derwent, Mr. Bass is silent, confining
his narrative to a general account of what he learned and saw of the
neighbouring country.

If the Derwent river have any claim to respectability, it is indebted for
it more to the paucity of inlets into Van Diemen's land, than to any
intrinsic merits of its own. After a sleepy course of not more than
twenty-five or twenty-seven miles to the NW it falls into Frederick Henry
Bay. Its breadth there is two miles and