218 
Voyage to Australia, 8c. 
[Oct. 1, 
whether the awkwardest and most dise Mr.Henny Ennts’s Journal of a Voyage 
proportioned chimnies, and the ugliest 
‘and most fantastic of those grates and 
fireplaces by which the inventive cupi- 
dity of fashion-mongers has endea- 
voured to excite and minister to the 
changeful caprice of those who have 
neither taste nor common sense to guide 
them, have not uniformly been found 
to be those which destroy most coal, 
diffuse least warmth, and aré most fre- 
quently productive of discomfiture 
and annoyance. 
But I will venture to descend to still 
more housewifely minutiz of detail; 
nor disdain to handle, on this occasion, 
even the hearth-brush and the fire- 
shovel ; for a clean hearth, a clear fire, 
and a regular temperature, are worthy to 
be enumerated among the objects, at once 
of taste, economy and comfort: and let 
those who delight in sudden gusts of 
blaze and smoke, in abrupt transitions 
from oppressive heat to shivering chill- 
ness, and can endure to see the hearth 
piled with cinders and ashes, while the 
flame is struggling in vain for a passage 
through an oppressive heap of fresh and 
unignited coals, dispute, if they please, 
the correctness of my critical percep- 
tions. But the economy of taste being 
the subject of my essay, let those who 
have not hitherto been in the practice 
make the experiment, during a single 
winter, of keeping their hearth 
always clean, within as well as without 
the fender ; of regularly throwing up 
their cinders, and covering them with 
frequent and moderate supplies of coal 
—using the poker only rarely and tem- 
-perately, so as to keep a constant 
draft, or passage for the air, and pro- 
duce but little flame ; and then (if their 
establishment be small enough to per- 
mit the difference of their own parlour 
consumption to be perceptible) let them 
look, at the end of the year, to their 
coal-merchant’s account, and see if the 
system which has afforded them a con- 
stantly cheerful—I was going to say a 
picturesque—fire, a clean hearth, and a 
regular temperature, will not demon- 
strate also, in pounds, shillings and 
pence, the economy of taste. This cal- 
culation, however, proceeds upon the 
’ premises, that the coals made use of 
are exclusively of the prime quality: 
and which, if thus used, are eventually 
the cheapest. With coals of a very 
inferior quality, at whatever price they 
may be purchased, neither economy, 
taste nor comfort are certainly to be 
expected, Rusticus, 
to New Sourn Waters, AusTRALIA, 
Port Essincton, Arstey Straits, 
Se. 
(Continued from p. 125.] 
Thursday, 23d. — Finding that fresh 
water could not be had, the season fast 
advancing, and Melville and Bathurst 
Islands being the principal points con- 
templated for forming the new settle- 
ments on, we weighed and made 
sail. At noon, Vashon Head south- 
west; Smith’s Point, south-east and 
by east three-quarters east; at six, 
north-east part of Melville Island bear- 
ing from south twenty-three west to 
south forty-seven west, distance twenty 
miles; west end ,of Cobourg Penin- 
sula south forty-seven east, fifteen 
miles. 
Sunday, 26th.—At six, made sail up 
Apsley Straits. At one, p.m., running 
in for the anchorage. At half-past one 
came-to in fifteen and a quarter fa- 
thoms, Luxmore Head south sixty-five 
east, Pipers Head north ten west. 
The distance between Port Essington 
and the anchorage in Apsley Straits, 
which divide Melville and Bathurst 
Islands, is about one hundred and 
twenty miles ;the soundings between 
these ports are from seven and a-half 
to thirteen and a-half fathoms. 
Our satisfaction was very great on 
our arrival at the place of our final 
destination, after a passage of upwards 
of seven months from Plymouth, during 
which time, with very little exception, 
we had had delightful weather, a healthy 
ship’s company, and but one accident 
of any consequence—the drowning of 
poor Lovett. 
The entrance to this noble port is 
truly delightful ; Bathurst Island rising 
gently on the right, and Melville Island 
on the left, clothed in all the beauty 
and luxuriance of a tropical climate; 
and Harris’s Island standing in the cen- 
tre of the strait, forming one of the 
finest harbours and most picturesque 
scenes that can be well imagined. 
26th.—Every thing being prepared, 
the mariners were landed, and posses- 
sion taken of Melville and Bathurst 
Islands, in the same manner and form 
as at Port Essington; and the British 
colours displayed on Luxmore Head, 
with even more satisfaction (if possible) 
than on the Cobourg peninsula, as this 
was the point on which the new es-~ 
tablishment was to be formed, ‘and on 
which, in fact, all our expectations were 
centered, 
27th 
