up into a paste. They represented tolerable figures of sharks, porpoises,
turtles, lizards (of which I saw several small ones among the rocks)
trepang, star-fish, clubs, canoes, water-gourds, and some quadrupeds,
which were probably intended to represent kangaroos and dogs. The
figures, besides being outlined by the dots, were decorated all over with
the same pigment in dotted transverse belts. Tracing a gallery round to
windward, it brought me to a commodious cave, or recess, overhung by a
portion of the schistus, sufficiently large to shelter twenty natives,
whose recent fireplaces appeared on the projecting area of the cave.

"Many turtles' heads were placed on the shelfs or niches of the
excavation, amply demonstrative of the luxurious and profuse mode of life
these outcasts of society had, at a period rather recently, followed. The
roof and sides of this snug retreat were also entirely covered with the
uncouth figures I have already described.

"As this is the first specimen of Australian taste in the fine arts that
we have detected in these voyages, it became me to make a particular
observation thereon: Captain Flinders had discovered figures on Chasm
Island, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, formed with a burnt stick; but this
performance, exceeding a hundred and fifty figures, which must have
occupied much time, appears at least to be one step nearer refinement
than those simply executed with a piece of charred wood. Immediately
above this schistose stratum is a superincumbent mass of sandstone, which
appeared to form the upper stratum of the island." (Cunningham
manuscript.)*

(*Footnote. Similar representations were found by Mr. White, carved on
stone in the neighbourhood of Port Jackson. White's Journal quarto page
141.)

June 25.

Having procured all the spars and planks from the wreck that could be
useful to us, we made preparations to sail, and at daylight, the 25th,
got underweigh with my two companions, and resumed our course to the
northward, over that of last year, excepting that we steered inside of
Pelican Island, and to leeward of Island 4. We passed several large
sting-rays asleep on the surface of the sea, which our people
ineffectually endeavoured to harpoon. On the former island large flights
of pelicans were seen, and upon the sandbank, to the southward of it,
there was a flock of two or three hundred young birds.

The breeze not being sufficient to carry us to Night Island before dark,
the an