out-manoeuvred any more, but take up our position on the highest hill we
could find. This was a very scrubby one, but by a vigorous application of
the axes for an hour or two, we completely cleared its summit; and then
taking up the drays, tent, baggage, etc. we occupied the best and most
commanding station in the neighbourhood. The result of this movement was,
that during the day the natives all left, and went in the direction of
where the cutter was. I was not sorry for their departure; for although
they had been very friendly and useful to us, yet now that I contemplated
keeping the party for a long time in camp, and should myself probably be
a considerable time absent, I was more satisfied at the idea of the
natives being away, than otherwise; not that I thought there was the
least danger to be apprehended from them if they were properly treated;
but the time of my men would be much occupied in attending to the horses
and sheep; and they were too few in number, to admit of much of that time
being taken up in watching the camp or the natives who might be near it;
for I always deemed it necessary, as a mere matter of prudence, to keep a
strict look out when any natives were near us, however friendly they
might profess to be.

Upon walking round the shores of Fowler's Bay, I found them literally
strewed in all directions with the bones and carcases of whales, which
had been taken here by the American ship I saw at Port Lincoln, and had
been washed on shore by the waves. To judge from the great number of
these remains, of which very many were easily recognisable as being those
of distinct animals, the American must have had a most fortunate and
successful season.

It has often surprised me, that the English having so many colonies and
settlements on the shores of Australia, should never think it worth their
while to send whalers to fish off its coasts, where the whales are in
such great numbers, and where the bays and harbours are so numerous and
convenient, for carrying on this lucrative employment. I believe scarcely
a single vessel fishes any where off these coasts, which are entirely
monopolised by the French and Americans, who come in great numbers; there
cannot, I think, be less than three hundred foreign vessels annually
whaling off the coasts, and in the seas contiguous to our possessions in
the Southern Ocean. I have generally met with a great many French and
American vessels in the few ports or bays that I h