e, afforded a sample of
what we had afterwards so often to experience during our rambles in
tropical Australia. Towards the northern end of the island we found
several creeks and lagoons of salt and brackish water, occasionally
communicating with the sea, probably under the conjoined influences of
spring tides and a strong easterly wind. Towards evening, finding among
the contents of our game-bags several ducks, of two species--Anas
superciliosa, the black duck of the colonists, the richest and best
flavoured of all the Australian waterfowl, and A. punctata, or teal, we
had them cooked bush fashion, for supper. The night being fine, we
enjoyed our bivouac upon the top of a sandhill, near the sea, by the side
of a dead Pandanus, which served as firewood--although it was judged
expedient to keep watch by turns, and go the rounds occasionally,
especially after the setting of the moon and before daybreak. We saw no
recent signs of natives, however, during our absence from the ship; but
former experience upon this coast had taught me how necessary it is to be
ever on one's guard, even in apparently uninhabited places; and such
watchfulness soon becomes habitual, and at length ceases to be irksome.
Next day we returned to the ship, more than ever convinced of the
comparative uselessness of the country which we had gone over for
agricultural or even pastoral purposes, except on a very small scale. On
our way back we met with two horses, both in good condition, which had
been left by Colonel Barney's party.

GLADSTONE SETTLEMENT.

On another occasion Mr. Huxley and myself landed at the site of the
settlement of Gladstone, and were picked up in the evening by Captain
Stanley in one of the surveying boats, on his return to the ship. It is
difficult to conceive a more dreary spot, and yet I saw no more eligible
place for a settlement on the shores of the harbour. A few piles of
bricks, the sites of the tents, some posts, indicating the remains of a
provisional Government-house, wheel-ruts in the hardened clay, the stumps
of felled trees, together with a goodly store of empty bottles strewed
about everywhere, remained as characteristics of the first stage of
Australian colonisation. Within 200 yards of the township we came upon a
great expanse of several hundred acres of bare mud, glistening with
crystals of salt, bordered on one side by a deep muddy creek, and
separated from the shore by thickets of mangroves. The country for
se