was obliged to swim about two hundred yards; and, from being burdened
with his clothes, narrowly escaped with his life. Fortunately he met with
no further impediment to his return, and reached the tent much fatigued.
We afterwards made an excursion up this river, but from the greater part
of the day being spent in searching for the entrance, which is both shoal
and intricate, we did not succeed in reaching farther than four miles
from its mouth. At the part where we left off our examination, it was
about sixty yards wide, and from ten to twelve feet deep; bounded on
either side by gently rising and well wooded hills; but the soil was
neither rich nor deep. The shoals of the river, which at the entrance
were very extensive, were covered with large flights of water-fowl; among
which curlews and teals were abundant.

Oyster Harbour is plentifully stocked with fish, but we were not
successful with the hook, on account of the immense number of sharks that
were constantly playing about the vessel. A few fish were taken with the
seine, which we hauled on the eastern side of the small central island.
At this place Captain Vancouver planted and stocked a garden with
vegetables, no vestige of which now remained. Boongaree speared a great
many fish with his fiz-gig; one that he struck with the boat-hook on the
shoals at the entrance of the Eastern River weighed twenty-two pounds and
a half, and was three feet and a half long. The mouths of all the creeks
and inlets were planted with weirs, which the natives had constructed for
the purpose of catching fish. Mr. Roe, on his excursion round the
harbour, counted eleven of these weirs on the flats and shoals between
the two rivers, one of which was a hundred yards long, and projected
forty yards, in a crescent-shape, towards the sea; they were formed by
stones placed so close to each other as to prevent the escape, as the
tide ebbed, of such fish as had passed over at high water. This expedient
is adopted in many parts of the continent; it was observed by Lieutenant
Oxley, R.N., the surveyor-general of New South Wales, in his journey on
the banks of the Lachlan River: the same was also seen by me on several
parts of the North-West Coast; and, from its being used on the
South-East, South-West, and North-West Coasts, it may be concluded to be
the practice throughout the country.

While waiting for an opportunity of leaving this harbour, Mr. Roe
assisted me in making a survey of the ent