We Followed It For Three Or Four Miles
Towards Its Head; And, When Crossing It, We Had A Very Heavy
Thunder-Storm; At The Earliest Hour We Had Ever Witnessed One.
The
Seaforthia palm because very abundant, and at last the forest was formed
entirely of it, with trees of every size.
Our guide showed us how we
could easily obtain the young shoots, by splitting the leaves and
leafstalks; and we enjoyed a fine meal of the cabbage. Our bullock
refused to go any farther, and, as I then knew that the settlement was
not very distant, I unloaded him, and covered his packsaddle and load
with tarpaulings, and left him to recruit for a few days; when I intended
to send for him. As we approached the harbour, the cabbage palm became
rarer, and entirely disappeared at the head of it. We crossed several
creeks running into the harbour, until we arrived at the Matunna, a dry
creek, at which the foot-path from Pitchenelumbo (Van Diomen's Gulf)
touched the harbour, and on which we should have come last night. We
followed it now, crossed the Warvi, the Wainunmema, and the Vollir - all
which enlarged into shallow lagoons or swamps, before they were lost
between the mangrove thickets. At the banks of the Vollir, some constant
springs exist, which induced Sir Gordon Bremer to choose that place for a
settlement, and on which Victoria at present stands. All these creeks
were separated from each other by a hilly forest land; but small fertile
flats of sandy alluvium, clothed with young grass, and bordered by
Banksias, extended along their banks.
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