SUFFERINGS FROM MUSQUITOES. 143 



since leaving Point Torment, a distance of nearly 

 thirty miles ; it was a very fine-grained red sand- 

 stone, darkened and rendered heavy by the pre- 

 sence of ferruginous particles. The appearance of 

 the country now began to improve, the eastern bank 

 was thickly wooded, and a mile higher up, the west- 

 ern appeared clothed in verdure. I noticed here 

 the same kind of tree, seen for the first time behind 

 our last night's bivouac ; it was small and shrubby 

 looking, with a rough bark, not unlike that of the 

 common elm, and its little pointed leaf, of a deep, 

 dark green, contrasted with the evergreen Eucalypti 

 by which it was surrounded, reminded me of the 

 various tints that give the charm of constant 

 variety to our English woods, and lend to each 

 succeeding season a distinctive and characteristic 

 beauty.* 



I must be pardoned for again alluding to our 

 old enemies the musquitoes, but the reception they 

 gave us this night is too deeply engraven on my 

 memory to be ever quite forgotten. They swarmed 

 around us, and by tlie light of the fire, the blanket 

 bags in which the men sought to protect themselves, 

 seemed literally black with their crawling and sting- 

 ing persecutors. Woe to the unhappy wretch who 



* The diameter of the largest tree of this kind was only eight 

 inches : it was exceedingly hard, and of a very dark red colour, 

 except a white rim about an inch in thickness. This wood 

 worked and looked the best, in a table I had made out of various 

 specimens of woods collected on the North-west coast of Aus- 

 tralia. 



