CAPE YORK. 351 



On the one hand is a small strip of Mangrove swamp ; in the 

 centre, a long beach of sand ; on the other hand, the commence- 

 ment of a range of low cliffs. 



Behind the shore of the Bay the land rises steeply, and is 

 covered with wood, except where cleared around two conspicuous 

 sets of wooden buildings, the one the residence of the magistrate, 

 the other the barracks of the water police. 



Three other wooden houses, one on the beach used as a store, 

 the other two nearly in ruins, and only temporarily inhabited, 

 make up with these the whole settlement of Somerset. There 

 were only five or six permanent White residents. At the time 

 of our visit there were in the place besides, others belonging to 

 a small Mission Steamer intended for New Guinea, and also the 

 skippers of two vessels employed in the pearl shell trade. 



The country is wooded in every direction, but with con- 

 stantly recurring open patches covered with scattered acacias, 

 gum trees, and Proteacese with grass only growing beneath. In 

 the dense woods, with their tall forest trees and tangled masses 

 of creepers, one might for a moment imagine oneself back in 

 Fiji or Api, but the characteristic opens, with scattered Eucalypti, 

 remind one at once that one is in Australia. The principal 

 features of Australian and Indian vegetation, are, as it were, 

 dovetailed into one another. 



In the woods, the tree trunks are covered with climbing 

 aroids, and often with orchids. Two palms, an Areca with a 

 tall slender stem not thicker than a man's wrist, but fifty feet 

 high, and a most beautiful Caryota, strong evidence of Indian 

 affinities in the flora, are abundant. The Cocoanut Palm, as is 

 well known, is not found anywhere growing naturally in 

 Australia, though it is abundant in islands not far from Cape 

 York. At Cape York some trees had been planted, but they 

 appear not to thrive. One of these, already more than eight years 

 old, at which age it ought to have been bearing fruit, had as 

 yet a trunk only a few feet in height. A Eattan Palm, trailing 

 everywhere between the underwood, is a terrible opponent, as 

 one tries to creep through the forest in search of birds. 



The number and variety of birds at Cape York is astonishing. 

 Two species of Ptilotis (P. crysotis and P. filigera) , different from 



